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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27926455">anamnesis</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/cenotaphy/pseuds/cenotaphy'>cenotaphy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>anamnesis 'verse [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>15.20 has no rights because i say so, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Rewrite, Canon compliant through 15.19, Castiel and Dean Winchester Have a Profound Bond, Castiel and Dean Winchester in Love, Chuck Shurley is God, Episode: s15e18 Despair, Episode: s15e19 Inherit the Earth, Episode: s15e20 Carry On, Fix-It, Happy Ending, M/M, Memory Loss, Michael Possessing Adam Milligan, Michael RETAINS his cool redemption arc in this and does not ruin it for no good reason, Mindfuck, Mutual Pining, Post-Episode: s15e19 Inherit the Earth, Reality Bending, Reunions, Road Trips, Season/Series 15, Series Finale, Team Free Will (Supernatural), Team Free Will 2.0 (Supernatural), The Impala (Supernatural), finale fix-it, say it with me there is no 15.20 in ba sing se, this is less a finale fix-it and more a finale retcon???</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 20:49:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>25,286</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27926455</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/cenotaphy/pseuds/cenotaphy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Chuck is depowered, Jack is the new god, and the world is free. Dean and Sam get into the Impala and chase down the miles on an endless highway, and their story is finally, <em>finally</em> their own to follow. At least, that's what Dean tells himself. But the diners and motels and painted interstate lines are blurring together and the smallest details keep catching at his brain like tiny fishhooks and he can't quite shake the feeling that not everything is exactly as it should be.</p><p>*<br/>Fix-it/alternate series finale. Canon-compliant through the end of 15.19.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel &amp; Sam Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester &amp; Sam Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>anamnesis 'verse [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2155998</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>352</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>871</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. i watched the fire that grew so low</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This picks up <em>directly</em> after/during the driving montage at the end of 15.19, and is canon divergent from that point onward.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They drive and drive.</p><p>The Impala eats up the miles and Dean thinks to himself that her engine almost sounds giddy, a wild exultation of sound that rumbles through his palms. The thought makes him grin.</p><p>Every so often, he and Sam catch each other’s eye and laugh helplessly. They’re free, Dean thinks. They’re really free.</p><p>“Where are we going?” Sam says, bemused, at one point. They're crossing through familiar terrain—all low rolling hills, the same palette of golds and greens smeared endlessly out to the horizon on either side of the road.</p><p>“Dude, I don’t know.” Dean beats a staccato rhythm against the steering wheel with his palm, and laughs again. <em>Free</em>, he thinks. “Celebratory road trip. We helped gank <em>God</em>. Well, not <em>gank</em>, I guess that was kind of the point, but you know. We can go anywhere. It’s just us.”</p><p>“Just us,” echoes Sam, and he smiles out the window at the landscape, a faraway look in his eyes.</p><p>*</p><p>They stop at a diner and Dean could swear the greasy, ordinary fare tastes better than usual. Maybe it’s because they came so close to, well, no more of <em>this</em>. No tired waitress shoving her bangs out of her eyes and taking their order, no trucker nursing a cup of coffee in the corner booth, no gangly teenagers darting their eyes bashfully at each other as they split a chocolate malt on the other side of the room. Dean feels affection well up in his heart for all of it.</p><p>“The world, huh?” he says. Jesus, maybe he's getting sentimental in his old age.</p><p>Sam pokes at his sad-looking salad. (Chuck may be gone but some things never change, apparently.) “It’s something,” he agrees lightly. Dean luxuriates in his brother's relaxed expression. It's been too long since they were both so...weightless. Too long since something or other wasn't hanging over their heads.</p><p>“Hey,” says Dean as a thought occurs to him. “You think Jack can hear us? Can he hear everything? Now that he’s...y’know.”</p><p>“I suppose,” says Sam. He chews a lettuce leaf musingly. <em>Like a wise tortoise</em>, Dean thinks, and successfully suppresses a snort. “I can’t imagine what it must be like. To be so...connected to everything.”</p><p>“I mean. If he’s <em>so</em> connected to everything, why isn’t he here with us? Eating a burger, watching you eat your lawn clippings?”</p><p>Sam takes another, even prissier bite of his salad. “I think that’s <em>why </em>he had to leave,” he says. “Dean, he’s not...<em>like</em> us, anymore. I know it's easy to keep thinking of him as our kid but he's, well, <em>god</em> now. And you heard what he said. Chuck put himself into the story and that was the whole problem. Maybe this is the only way we can really be free. God up in...Heaven, or wherever. Humans down here. It’s just us. Writing our own story, following it where it leads, no interference, no one else.”</p><p>"You and me, huh, bitch?" says Dean.</p><p>"Always, jerk," says Sam with the shadow of a grin.</p><p>“I’ll drink to that,” says Dean, and tips a french fry toward Sam.</p><p>*</p><p>They get a motel for the night. Dean burrows under the covers—it's chilly in the room, not much better than the damp night outside—and listens to Sam’s breathing even out in the other bed. They’ve been heading vaguely west and he traces out the map in his mind, thinking. Maybe they’ll skirt north a little, head up toward Washington. Change of scenery. Maybe all the way to the coast. That’d be two, maybe three days’ driving. Or find some cabin by a lake somewhere, take it easy for a couple of days.</p><p>He feels his lids growing heavy. <em>Free</em>, he thinks drowsily. He remembers Chuck’s pitiful groveling and a smile twitches the corner of his lips. Maybe he’ll dream about it tonight, relish the moment all over again.</p><p>Dean sleeps, and he doesn’t dream at all.</p><p>*</p><p>They stop for gas a couple counties over and catch wind of a case. Vampires, it sounds like. Dean looks at Sam over the top of the Impala and shrugs. It’s not like they’re in a hurry.</p><p>“How much longer till...wherever we’re heading?” says Sam. He chugs some water, the bottle tiny in his giant hand.</p><p>“Maybe...two days, to the coast? Pace we’re going?” Dean shrugs. “No rush, right?” They have the rest of their lives to live out however they want. How long has it been since some huge world-ending terror wasn’t looming them, overshadowing the future? Dean can’t even remember. Maybe they’ll redecorate the Bunker when they get back. Turn it into a friggin’ bed-and-breakfast. Hell, maybe he’ll learn to make croissants or something. </p><p>*</p><p>They find the vamp nest pretty easily, catch the bloodsuckers red-handed, quite literally. The frightened girl who was about to be their next meal escapes out the shed door as Dean and Sam lay waste with a pair of machetes from the Impala’s trunk.</p><p>It’s a good, rousing fight, the kind that’s just iffy enough to send adrenaline crackling like lightning through Dean’s veins, the kind where he’ll leave it a little bruised but not badly injured.</p><p>He shakes blood off his machete as the last vampire crumples, headless, to the ground. Grins over at Sammy, who for his part is surveying the wreckage of the shed with something like dismay.</p><p>“That seemed sort of...easy,” said Sam. A wrinkle appears in his gigantic forehead as he furrows his brow.</p><p>“Easy?” says Dean, incredulous. “Did you see me getting thrown into that woodpile?”</p><p>Sam huffs out a breath. “Don’t you think it’s a little...weird? We just walk into this case, breeze through and solve it? It hasn’t even been a day.”</p><p>“Dude.” Dean wipes the machete against a tarp-covered piece of machinery. “Normally I would be very supportive of your tin-hat ravings, but in case you forgot, the puppeteer behind your conspiracy theories is literally <em>depowered</em>. There’s no big bad evil pulling the strings anymore. Coincidence is just...coincidence, again.”</p><p>Sam looks skeptical, but he shrugs after a moment and starts attending to his own blade. “I guess.”</p><p>“God’s not even gone for a week and already you’re bored with cases,” Dean chides. His arm twinges—he’d landed on it badly when the vamp threw him. He reaches across to rub at the sore spot, then snatches his hand back in shock, staring at his shoulder.</p><p>“Dean? You alright?”</p><p>Dean tugs at his jacket, peers at the garment where it rucks over his shoulder. The fabric is pristine under the light dusting of sawdust from his woodpile collision. He'd thought—for a moment it'd looked like there was—but trick of the dim light, maybe.</p><p>He brushes his wrist across his eyes. “Yeah. I'm fine.”</p><p>*</p><p>Sam pokes him awake. The motel room quilt is scratchy under his arms and neck. Dean mumbles something.</p><p>“Don’t do what?” says Sam.</p><p>“Huh?” Dean struggles to bring his brain back online. “I didn’t say anything.” He eyes the two cups of coffee in Sam’s hands. “One of those for me?”</p><p>“You must’ve been dreaming.” Sam hands over one of the cups.</p><p>Dean wraps his hands around the steamy cardboard sleeve and sighs happily. Shitty gas station coffee, best way to start a morning on the road. “Nah, didn’t dream at all.”</p><p>“Me neither,” says Sam. “Slept like a rock.”</p><p>*</p><p>Sam stands outside the Impala, stretching for a moment before he slides in behind the wheel. “How much longer to Washington, do you think?”</p><p>Dean yawns and settles into the passenger seat, enjoying the breeze that plays lightly over his face. It's a little chilly and he reaches over to turn up the heat. “I dunno, like two days if we make decent time. Wake me up when you get tired.”</p><p>*</p><p>The clerk at the motel flirts with Dean and he grins at her, winks in a languid way that makes her giggle and makes Sam exhale a loud, long-suffering sigh. Dean ignores it. Sam’s been getting cranky—too much time on the road, maybe. Dean resolves to have them stay put for a couple weeks once they get back to the Bunker. Sam can go back to his little morning jog routine, start buying his bagged kale salads again. Dean will bully him into rewatching some old Westerns. <em>Tombstone</em>, maybe? No, not that one. Whatever—some kind of movie marathon, a couple days of boring cardio. Sam will cheer up eventually. They’ve got time.</p><p>“No need to harsh my vibe, Sammy,” he drawls once they get in the room, because hell if he’s going to pass up a chance to be annoying. “You’re just jealous of my way with the ladies.”</p><p>“Why would I be jealous?” says Sam, glaring. And then he frowns a little, like the question is bothering him.</p><p>“Aha,” says Dean, pointing. “You <em>are </em>jealous.”</p><p>Sam blinks at him. “What?”</p><p>Dean rolls his eyes. “Never mind. Come on, I’m beat. I want to try to get an early start tomorrow.”</p><p>He tumbles into the bed, fully-clothed, and is asleep almost immediately despite the scratchy sheets and fairly anemic heating. He doesn’t dream that night, either.</p><p>*</p><p>“How long to Washington?” says Sam, from the passenger seat. He’s rummaging through the bag of fast food they’d picked up for lunch.</p><p>“Maybe two more days,” says Dean. He hums along to the radio station—Seger, something boisterous and exultant.</p><p>“Feels like we’ve been driving forever,” Sam complains.</p><p>“If you start asking <em>are we there yet</em>, I swear I'm strapping you to the roof. You can stretch your legs and feel the wind in your flowing hair, you big princess.”</p><p>“You know, just because God’s gone doesn’t mean you get to be a <em>dick</em>, Dean.”</p><p>The radio stutters at that moment, goes to static. Dean tenses, and so does Sam. But it’s <em>just</em> static, crackly and soft. They glance at each other and start laughing.</p><p>“Old habits die hard, I guess,” Dean says. He suppresses another chuckle. “Throw a tape in, would you? There’s a couple in the glove box.”</p><p>Sam rummages through the glove compartment, pokes a tape into the stereo. The guitar starts up, sweet and lilting and a little wistful. Then Plant’s voice, picking up softly. <em>It is the springtime of my loving, the second season I am to know—</em></p><p>Dean yanks the steering wheel to the right, pulls the Impala over to the shoulder in a screech of brakes.</p><p>“Dean!” Sam yelps. “What the—”</p><p>There's a wrongness welling up in his chest, in his gut, in his throat. It's terrifying. It’s something huge and awful and choking and <em>he doesn’t know what it is</em>.</p><p>“Something’s—something’s wrong,” Dean says, stumbling over the words. “Sammy, something’s not—”</p><p>“You didn’t put your blinkers on just now,” says Sam, bitchily, “so hey, maybe it's that.”</p><p>Dean fumbles at the tape deck. <em>I watched the fire that grew so low</em>, Plant croons. Dean jabs at the buttons in increasing desperation. The tape is ejected finally, into his shaking hand. <em>Deans top 13 zepp traxx</em>, it reads.</p><p>“Why is this here,” Dean chokes out. “Why is this <em>here</em>, why is this <em>in here</em>—”</p><p>“Dean, what the hell, it’s <em>your </em>tape—”</p><p>It hits him like a runaway train, the answer. Dean doubles over like he’s just been punched in the stomach. His knuckles are white where he's clutching the wheel.</p><p>“Cas,” he gasps. “Sam, where’s <em>Cas</em>, where’s—”</p><p>He sees Sam’s eyes fly wide with recognition, then horror.</p><p>Dean shoves open the driver’s side door and stumbles out onto the tarmac. A semi blares by in a rush of wind and sound. He bends to brace his hands on his knees, hyperventilating. His eyes sting.</p><p>
  <em>I love you. Don’t do this, Cas. I love you.</em>
</p><p>“Dean!” Sam stumbles around the front of the car. “Don’t—don’t run into traffic, Jesus—”</p><p>“What the <em>hell</em> is going on?” Dean yells. <em>I love you.</em> <em>I love you.</em> It pounds in his skull like a fucking death knell. “Did we—did we fucking <em>forget</em> Cas?”</p><p>Sam’s face is twisted in mingled confusion and anguish. “No,” he says, “no, we didn’t—”</p><p>Sam’s right, Dean realizes. He rakes his fingers through his hair, blinks away a blurry film of bewildered tears. He hadn’t <em>forgotten </em>about Cas. He just—hadn’t <em>thought</em> about him, either. As if Cas had just been—shelved in the back of his brain, a closed book, out of sight and out of mind. But that—that doesn’t make sense—</p><p>—because Dean would never—not even if it took him <em>years</em>, he would never—</p><p>“Jack could’ve brought him back,” says Dean wildly.  “Jack’s the frigging boss of the universe, why didn’t he just—”</p><p><em>Why didn’t you ask him to</em>, snipes an oily, self-hating voice in his head.</p><p>Sam is shaking his head, one hand pressed to his temple. A tear glints on his cheek.</p><p>“We didn’t <em>ask</em>,” says Dean. He feels unmoored, panicky. Like he's been climbing a set of stairs in the dark, and his foot has just plummeted through empty space where there should have been a step.</p><p>He looks at Sam, like he's going to find answers written on his brother's face, somehow. “<em>Why</em> wouldn’t we ask? Sam, we just—we just up and left for a <em>road trip</em>? We left Cas in the—in the—” He can barely say it. He sees, again, the black tar devouring Cas's tear-streaked face. It's burned into his brain. How could he have ever <em>not</em> been seeing it? “Why didn’t we talk to Jack about it?”</p><p>Sam swallows; the corner of his mouth trembles. “Dean...I don’t think...I don’t think we talked to <em>anyone</em>. After Jack left, we just...”</p><p>Dean opens his mouth. Closes it. Thinks back to that afternoon. They’d driven back to the Bunker, barely finished their celebratory beers before hopping into the Impala and just—<em>going</em>. “But why would we—wouldn't we talk to—”</p><p>Sam blanches suddenly. “Oh my god,” he gasps, “<em>Eileen</em>.”</p><p>“Eileen—Bobby, Charlie, Donna, <em>Jody</em>—” Dean rakes his hands through his hair as the names sink into him like knives. "What the fuck." Awareness floods through him and he can't understand <em>how</em>—he doesn't <em>understand</em>. It wasn't even that he'd <em>assumed</em> everyone was alright. It hadn't even crossed his mind.</p><p>“What the <em>fuck</em>," he repeats. "Did we check on <em>any</em> of them? Did we just fucking <em>skip town</em>? They’re back, right? Are they back?”</p><p>“We...didn’t think about them at all,” says Sam slowly. “How could that...we didn’t think about them, and we didn’t think about Cas, we just—”</p><p>Dean yanks his phone out of his pocket and swipes through it. Nothing. No missed calls, no unanswered texts. He lets it slide out of his shaking hands, onto the tarmac.</p><p>Sam’s eyebrows are angling downward, a muscle knotting in his jaw as he clenches it. “Dean,” he says, very quietly. “How long have we been driving.”</p><p>“Is that really important right now—”</p><p>“How <em>long</em>, Dean!”</p><p>“I don’t know, a week?” yells Dean. “Who cares, it’s two more days to—to—”</p><p>He sputters to a halt. Stares at Sam. <em>What the fuck. What the fuck is going on</em>. It's been two days to Washington for—how many days? He and Sam have just been—driving unconcernedly towards the horizon, all this time. What have they been thinking about—why is there so much they <em>haven't</em> been thinking about? The gaping hole that throbs in his chest like a wound, when he thinks of Cas—where has <em>that</em> been, all this time? He tries to fight through the spasm of fear and panic that's making his hands shake, but some kind of frantic clamor is starting up inside his head, drowning out every coherent thought with a ceaseless cacophony of <em>this isn't real this isn't real</em>.</p><p>Sam seems like he's tracking to the same conclusion, if his enormous eyes are anything to go by. His mouth has already settled into a grim line, like Sam's body has already identified and is reacting to the presence of danger, even if his mind hasn't caught up yet. “Something is wrong," he says, low and sure.</p><p>"No <em>shit</em>, but <em>what</em>—"</p><p>The sound of the highway, of the cars roaring by, cuts out.</p><p>Dean and Sam turn, and there he is, strolling toward them across six lanes of frozen traffic. Slow-clapping, like the asshole that he is.</p><p>“Oh, really <em>good</em>, guys,” says Chuck, and his smile is wide and bright and diamond-hard.</p><p>“Chuck,” Sam whispers. “But—how—”</p><p>“Come <em>on</em>,” says Chuck. He comes to a halt beside them and tucks his hands into his pockets. “That was the big reveal, boys. You're supposed to have it figured out now."</p><p>“Jack drained you,” Dean spits. His mind whirls. This isn’t possible. They were <em>free</em>.</p><p>(Free to do what, he thinks. Driving endlessly. Brains running in the same tired loops again and again like hamsters on a wheel. They weren't free at all, they were trapped in a bigger cage.)</p><p>(Trapped, and alone.)</p><p>“Oh, Jack drained me?” says Chuck. He rolls his eyes at the sky, his whole body echoing the motion. “Jack was...let me see, what was it, a power vacuum? Really? You guys thought <em>that</em> one was plausible? And what else...Michael survived for, let's see, no reason at all, and he was playing you, <em>very</em> predictable, except you were really playing <em>him</em>, also predictable. And oh yeah, we threw Lucifer in too, didn’t we. Really just dug that one up just to rebury it, huh?”</p><p>“What the <em>hell</em>—” Dean balls his hands into fists.</p><p>“None of it was real,” says Sam, quietly. “Was it.”</p><p>“Oh, you mean the incredibly convenient <em>me ex machina</em> where your adopted kid sucks all the midichlorians out of me and takes my job? No, you morons.” Chuck spreads his hands. “I’m a <em>cosmic entity</em>. I created <em>everything that exists</em>. I’m not a fucking <em>guy with powers</em>, I <em>am </em>power.”</p><p>“Why?” Dean demands. “Why go through all of this? What’s the <em>point</em>?”</p><p>Chuck turns to face him fully, eyebrows arching like Dean’s just asked a truly stupid question. “The point is that you two still <em>don't get it</em>. You idiots still think you get to <em>choose</em>. You think you can do whatever you want, that you can fight my fingers stirring around in your little brains. But guess what? All I have to do is make you think I’m gone for good..." He mimes exaggerated jazz hands at them, palms out. "And I’m <em>in</em>, baby.”</p><p>“You messed with our heads,” Dean growls. “Again. You played us, <em>again</em>.”</p><p>“Yeah, and you didn’t have a <em>clue</em>, because the big, bad god was gone, huh? <em>Coincidences are just coincidences</em>. You let your guard down and now you two will keep running your little rat race for <em>as long as I want</em>. Driving your stupid little car on a highway with no end, having the same tired conversations and letting your thoughts carve grooves into your little skulls—<em>this</em> is your life. This is what you get. You <em>were </em>my favorite show. Now? Now you get to be <em>boring</em>.”</p><p>“Oh yeah?” says Dean. Rage licks a stripe of white-hot fire down his insides and he leans into the comfort of it. Stokes it into a blaze, converts it to a furious recklessness. In the back of his mind, he's aware that Sam has shifted positions, is no longer in his field of vision. “Because I’m pretty sure we just figured it out, anyway. Your con job worked for what, a couple weeks? And now we’re onto you, so you can kiss your screwed-up plan to leave us on eternal screensaver mode goodbye, you fucking <em>dick</em>."</p><p>“Is that what you think?” Chuck sneers, advancing on him. “Keep fooling yourself, Dean. I’ve got my hooks so deep in you and your broth—”</p><p>The scythe-blade bursts out of the front of his chest with a sound like whispering silk. Chuck gags on the middle of a word, his head tipping back. His blue eyes are round with shock, fixed up toward the afternoon sky like mirrors.</p><p>Behind him, both hands wrapped around the scythe haft, Sam curls his lip in a snarl. “Pretty sure Death’s scythe can kill a cosmic entity.”</p><p>“And stay gone, this time,” Dean adds, for effect.</p><p>Chuck’s mouth moves wordlessly. A bubble of scarlet blood blooms from between his lips. Light starts to unfurl just beneath his skin, a vibrating bloom of white-gold radiance.</p><p>“<em>Sammy</em>,” Dean calls urgently, reaching out as his brother edges around Chuck's shaking form. He feels Sam’s sleeve under his hand, and clutches at it. The light from Chuck burns brighter, hotter, until Dean has to turn away and shut his eyes. Sam's hand is on his wrist, fingers digging in. There's a roaring all around them, like he's caught in a hurricane-force gale.</p><p><em>Cas</em>, he thinks, for no particular reason. <em>I'll find a way to</em>—</p><p>Just as suddenly, the light and sound are gone. Dean cracks his eyes open.</p><p>Warm lamplight, old-fashioned furniture. The quiet hum of machinery beneath his feet.</p><p>The Bunker.</p><p>“What the—” Sam sags beside him. “Holy—”</p><p>“—shit,” Dean finishes, dazed. “Whoa.”</p><p>Sam swivels his head this way and that. “Jesus. Did we...did we just…”</p><p>“...kill God? Yeah, looks like.”</p><p>“Thank goodness we kept Betty’s scythe,” Sam mumbles.</p><p>“No kidding,” says Dean. “Shit. He’s really...he’s really gone. Not just depowered—he's <em>dead</em>.”</p><p>He feels a tightness in his chest, as he says it. He hadn't wanted that, Chuck dead. Not really. Not anymore. But Chuck—Chuck had forced their hand. They'd had no choice.</p><p>"We did it,” says Sam, wonderingly. "Dean...we actually did it. We won. For real. We're free."</p><p>"We won," Dean echoes. The tension coiled in his chest loosens and he feels his limbs relax, feels weight lift from his shoulders. <em>They beat God</em>. He and Sam—they <em>did</em> it, they saved the world. They saved <em>themselves</em>, from Chuck's twisted designs, his awful power fantasies. “No gods, no epic plans, no storylines. Just us.”</p><p>“Wherever our story takes us," says Sam, and he, too, looks like weight is lifting from him. His expression clears, the worry and disbelief easing into something lighter, happier.</p><p>“Well,” Dean says. “Hopefully Baby got zapped here too. What are we waiting for?”</p><p>He claps Sam on the shoulder, grinning suddenly for a reason he can’t quite pinpoint. They stride toward the garage.</p><p><em>Free</em>, Dean thinks. <em>We’re free</em>.</p><p>He starts to add, for no reason, <em>free to—</em></p><p>But the thought slides away, unfinished.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Don't despair--this is not the end of the story! This will probably be 3-4 chapters. The idea for this fic sank unrelenting claws into my brain directly after watching 15.19 and was only strengthened by my resolve to disregard the UTTER TRAINWRECK OF 15.20, so I'm excited to finally be posting this first part!</p><p>As always, thoughts/comments/reactions are adored. &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. the second season i am to know</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They make great time heading west. Dean finally calls it for the night, parks them at a decrepit little diner advertising its daily special in faded hand-lettering. The ramshackle mundanity of it all is somehow charming, after everything they've survived. Dean turns the collar of his jacket up against the chilly air and thinks about maybe heading towards Washington. They could get a cabin by the shore. He can picture it in his head. Peaceful. Just for a couple of weeks before they get back in the saddle. The world seems to still be ticking along, in the wake of Chuck's scythe-induced disintegration, but he and Sam could use a vacation anyway.</p><p>Something nags at him, all throughout dinner. He frowns at Sam over the top of his burger.</p><p>"What?" says Sam, eyebrows raised. He hasn't touched his salad. Dean can't blame him—Dean wouldn't touch that shit either.</p><p>"Nothing," says Dean. "Just—can't believe he's really gone."</p><p>Sam frowns. "Chuck?"</p><p>"Yeah," says Dean. He frowns again. "Yeah, Chuck, obviously."</p><p>*</p><p>“Dude, wake up.” Sam shakes him by the shoulder.</p><p>“Wha…” Dean groans, cracking his eyes open. He feels a faint draft playing over his face, though the room's heater has been quiet.</p><p>“You were talking in your sleep,” says Sam, his giant forehead glowing in the lamplight like a beacon. “Bad dream?”</p><p>Dean hadn’t dreamed at all. “No,” he grumbles. “Coffee?”</p><p>“They didn’t have any at the desk. We’ll grab some on the way, come on. Two more days to Washington, right?”</p><p>*</p><p>It’s a couple of days after that, still on the road to Washington, that Dean glances over at the forest flashing past beyond the highway guardrail. He looks at the kaleidoscope of sunlight, the trees whipping past, the empty breakdown lane—and something short-circuits in his brain. A bolt of white-hot nausea lances down his spine, nearly making him lose control of the wheel. He jerks the Impala over to the shoulder of the interstate and sucks air into his lungs, his stomach churning like he's going to be sick.</p><p>“Dude, what the fuck,” Sam protests.</p><p>Dean presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. “Something’s wrong,” he grits out. There’s <em>loss </em>opening up in his chest. Something enormous and aching, a hole where someone should be. He wants to weep, and doesn’t know why. He twists around to look over his shoulder. The back seat of the Impala is empty. It’s <em>empty</em>. “Sammy, something’s wrong—where is—”</p><p>
  <em>Where's the angel.</em>
</p><p>"<em>Cas</em>," he wheezes. His heart wrenches with a spasm of emotion so agonizing that he presses a hand to his chest, certain that he's about to go into fucking cardiac arrest. He can't get enough breath into his lungs. A chill breeze caresses his face.</p><p>“Castiel...” Sam mouths, and his eyes go round with shock and confusion. “Oh, fuck—oh my god—Cas, <em>Eileen</em>, Jack, Charlie—”</p><p>“What the <em>hell</em> is going on?” Dean snarls.</p><p>“Alright," says Chuck, from the back seat, no longer empty. Dean and Sam jerk in simultaneous surprise. Chuck leans forward, propping his arms on the bench, and rolls his eyes with something like disgust. “Honestly, I thought this round would last a little longer.”</p><p>“We <em>killed </em>you,” says Sam, “for real this time, we—”</p><p>“Oh, did you?” Chuck sneers. “With the scythe you just <em>happened </em>to have? Which just <em>happened</em> to get left behind after Death was killed?”</p><p>"I—it was there because—" Sam stutters, and falters again. He shoots Dean another wide-eyed look, and Dean realizes that he doesn't remember putting the scythe in the back seat. Doesn't even remember if it was left behind after Lucifer dusted Betty. Which—had <em>that</em> part happened? Or was that—wasn't that part of the <em>last</em> storyline Chuck had sunk into place around them—and hadn't that all been a lie, a trap? How far back were Chuck's webs running? A cold eddy of fear whirls in the base of his throat, and he has to swallow hard around it.</p><p><em>I don't know what's real</em>, he thinks. <em>I don't know what the fuck is real.</em></p><p>"And of course," Chuck is saying snidely, "even if you <em>did</em> have a real honest-to-me cosmic nuke in your grubby hands, the idea that a <em>human</em> could wield <em>Death's weapon</em> to reap <em>me</em>—"</p><p>"Listen, I don't care what the fuck you're trying to accomplish here," Dean snarls, interrupting Insufferable Monologue Number Whatever. “Whatever this is, whatever game you’re playing? We want off this goddamn train. Now!”</p><p>“And miss all the fun?” says Chuck, raising his eyebrows. “Like I’m gonna—”</p><p>His voice dies mid-sentence, his mouth working soundlessly even as his face drains of color. Tiny curls of darkness leak down from his lash line, tracing their way over his face like tears.</p><p>Dean watches, horrified, as Chuck simply—dissolves. His skin crumples in on itself, soundlessly; his body dissipates like morning mist.</p><p>“Well,” says Amara blandly, from where she’s just appeared in the back seat. “That looked unpleasant. I’d say it might teach him a thing or two about trying to subsume me into himself, but he can’t really learn any more lessons at this point, can he?”</p><p>Sam and Dean gape at her.</p><p>"Yes, he's gone," she informs them helpfully. "Thanks for providing the distraction I needed. I've...decocted him into the rest of creation, so to speak. Didn't particularly care to have him in the driver's seat any longer."</p><p>"We—we thought he absorbed you," Sam says.</p><p>"Oh, he tried. If we'd been in harmony, it might've worked—but I guess I haven't been feeling particularly harmonious these days."</p><p>“You—and so you just—” Dean sputters. Amara lifts a hand to cut him off.</p><p>“Enjoy your life, boys,” she says. There’s a brilliant flash, and Dean squeezes his eyes shut.</p><p>“Sam,” he yells, over the crescendo of light and sound. “Sam, we have to remember them this time. We have to remember Cas—"</p><p>*</p><p>Dean staggers as his soles hit polished flooring. The Bunker's lights are warm and gold.</p><p>Beside him, Sam is blinking owlishly. “That was—huh.”</p><p>“Yeah,” says Dean. He drags a hand down his face. “I did not see that coming.”</p><p>“I mean—Amara? Killing her own brother?”</p><p>“He was kind of asking for it, to be fair,” Dean mutters.</p><p>“I can’t—" Sam shoves his stupid bangs out of his face. "I can't believe it’s all over.”</p><p>Dean grunts in agreement. There’s an itching under his skin. “Do you think that was finally it?” he says. “Was that the real deal? Is Chuck dead?”</p><p>“It wasn’t us that time, right?” says Sam. He shrugs. “It’s not like we had another weird weapon stashed in the back seat—”</p><p>“—can’t believe we fell for <em>that</em>,” Dean interjects.</p><p>“—that was just...Amara taking things into her own hands. Family business. Or...whatever.”</p><p>“Guess we can take a drive, see if the rest of the planet is still walking around,” Dean snorts. He tugs his jacket more securely around him—why is the Bunker so goddamn frigid? “Kind of want to take a drive anyway.”</p><p>“Yeah,” says Sam. “Yeah, a drive sounds good.”</p><p>“You and me, Sammy,” says Dean. He claps Sam on the back and they head for the garage.</p><p>*</p><p>They've just filled up the Impala at a gas station two days from Washington, but Dean hesitates as he slides the key into the ignition. He has the absurd thought that the shadows around them look all wrong. The windows are up, but it feels like a cold breeze is stirring the hairs on the back of his neck. He resists the urge to look behind him, into the back seat. Why would he look in the back seat?</p><p>Sam looks around like he's just woken up from a dream. "Shouldn't we get back on the road," he says slowly, but it doesn't sound like a question. "Dean?"</p><p>An ugly gold car ambles past them, pulls out of the gas station and glides away. Dean tracks it with his eyes. Memory hits him like a steel-toed boot to the solar plexus. "Don't do this," he gasps, the words ripped out of his throat on reflex.</p><p>"Don't do wha—"</p><p>"<em>Cas</em>." It tears his insides open on the way up. Flays him raw. <em>No, no, no.</em> He sees void engulfing Cas. Swallowing him up. Dragging him away.</p><p>"Wh—oh, <em>god</em>."</p><p>"We—" Dean clutches at his head. "Fuck, where—what happened—"</p><p>Sam all but kicks the passenger side door open—shoves his head and shoulders through the gap, leans out over the asphalt. Dean can hear him retching.</p><p>"Really?" says Chuck, irritated, from beside the gas pump.</p><p>*</p><p>The Bunker's lights are warm and gold.</p><p><em>We're free</em>, Dean thinks in disbelief. He grins at Sam.</p><p>*</p><p>"You got any pie?" Dean asks the server, cheekily. She blushes and smiles at him. Sam rolls his eyes so loudly Dean thinks they might honest-to-god pop out of their sockets.</p><p>"We got apple and blueberry, hon."</p><p>"Apple, definitely," says Dean. "Sam?"</p><p>"Not at <em>four in the morning</em>, Dean."</p><p>"You know," says Dean, as the waitress bustles off, "you might have a better attitude about late-night grave-digging if you knew there was a reward at the end of it."</p><p>"I don't need pie as a reward," says Sam, bitchily.</p><p>Dean jabs a fork at him. "You know who always respects my appreciation for pie?"</p><p>And then he doesn't say anything at all, because—because—</p><p>"Who? Cas?" says Sam skeptically, in the ensuing silence. His face drains of color. "Oh my god, <em>Cas</em>—"</p><p>*</p><p>The Bunker's lights are warm and gold.</p><p>*</p><p>"Sam," Dean yells, frantically. Embers rain down around them—the earth around the blast zone is scorched black, a molten spot marking the spot where Chuck had been standing. "Sam, remember! We have to—"</p><p>There's a blaze of light.</p><p>*</p><p><em>We're free</em>, Dean thinks, dizzy with the magnitude of the realization. <em>For the first time in our lives, maybe</em>.</p><p>He grins at his brother. "Sam—"</p><p>*</p><p>"Sam—it's gonna be okay, Sammy—you did it—"</p><p>Sam spits out a wet mouthful of blood. "I...hate...that stupid...gun."</p><p>"You're gonna be okay," Dean whispers again. He presses a palm over the bullet wound. He can feel the breath rattling in his little brother's lungs. He can't lose Sam. Not Sam too. Grief threatens to split him open. First Cas and now—</p><p>"We can't forget," Sam grits out. He grips Dean's wrist, his hand like a vise. Blood bubbles up between Dean's frantic fingers. "Dean, we gotta—"</p><p>"I know, Sammy, I know—"</p><p>There's a blaze of light.</p><p>*</p><p>"Dean," Sam stammers. He steps back from Chuck, releasing the scythe haft. The blade slides out of Chuck's chest with a wet <em>snick</em>; topples onto the tarmac in a clatter of metal. "Dean, hasn't this—hasn't this happened before—"</p><p>There's a blaze of light.</p><p>*</p><p>Dean jerks awake, starting upright in the motel room bed. The sheets are soaked in sweat. Someone is crying out, a sound of unfathomable loss and sorrow.</p><p>Sam shoots upright in the next bed over, his gun already out. "What is—Dean? <em>What</em>?"</p><p>Dean realizes the person yelling is him. He clamps his mouth shut, frantically sucks in air through his nose. "I—nothing. Nothing."</p><p>"Nightmare?" says Sam.</p><p>Dean can't remember a damn thing. He rakes one hand through his damp hair, tries to breathe. "I guess."</p><p>*</p><p>"Come on, Sam," Dean says, punching Sam lightly on the shoulder. Cornfields race past, just beyond the window. "It's Seger—you can't <em>not</em> sing along to Seger—"</p><p>*</p><p>"We have to—" Dean drops to his knees, hanging on to the edge of the map room table. He's wheezing like he's just run a marathon. "Sam, we have to—"</p><p>"There's something missing," says Sam wildly. He spins around, looking at the walls like the answers are going to be scrawled there.</p><p>"What do we need to remember?" Dean isn't sure if he's asking Sam or himself. He stares down at his hands, almost expecting to find a note scribbled across his palms.</p><p>"That it's—it's—" Sam's face scrunches. "It's over." He sounds almost as though he's pleading. "It's over. Dean, it's <em>over</em>, isn't it?"</p><p>Dean slowly pulls himself to his feet. A sense of overwhelming relief wells slowly and inexorably in his chest, like water from an unseen spring. It quiets the buzz in his head, smoothes out the itch under his skin. A breeze raises goosebumps on his arms. "It has to be," he says.  "Chuck's dead, we're—"</p><p>"Free," Sam finishes. His face clears. "We're free."</p><p>*</p><p>"Dean," Chuck coos. "Just give in to it. Come on, shoot me. You'll be free."</p><p>"I—" Dean tightens his grip on the Colt. He can hear Sam struggling to his feet, behind him. "I—no. You're no danger to anyone anymore. We've already beaten you."</p><p>"So then, take your revenge," Chuck coaxes. "Aren't you pissed, Dean? Aren't you <em>mad</em>?"</p><p>"Yeah," says Dean. "But—that's not what we do. That's not who we are."</p><p>"Shame," says Chuck, sourly. He snaps his fingers. There's a blaze of light.</p><p>*</p><p>"How much farther to Washington?"</p><p>"Probably about two days."</p><p>*</p><p>Dean wakes up in a motel bed.</p><p>*</p><p>"Good one," sneers Chuck. "Rowena? Really? You thought that was it? You thought some witch from the Middle Ages had the chops to write <em>me</em> out of <em>my</em> story?"</p><p>*</p><p>Dean wakes up in a motel bed.</p><p>*</p><p>"Sounds like vampires—should we check it out?"</p><p>*</p><p>Dean wakes up in a motel bed.</p><p>*</p><p>"Just us," says Dean, clinking his beer against Sam's. "Going wherever the story takes us."</p><p>"Making it up as we go along?" says Sam, eyebrows raised.</p><p>Dean drops his beer. It shatters on the Bunker floor.</p><p>"Oh, come on," Chuck snarls, "<em>already</em>?"</p><p>*</p><p>"I don't know how to find you," Dean says to empty air. "I don't even know who—what—"</p><p>He stumbles, grasping at straws. Looks around. There's a lake, and a wet alleyway, and a streambed, and a creeping darkness like tar.</p><p>"I just know you're—you're gone, and I—"</p><p>Dean wakes up in a motel bed.</p><p>"Dean, hey—hey—" Sam lets go of his shoulder as Dean struggles back against the headboard, gasping. "Hey, what were you—"</p><p>"I—" Dean shakes his head like someone trying to clear the water from their ears. "Uh. I was—"</p><p>"Dream?"</p><p>Dean remembers light, darkness. Grief like a sucking wound in his chest. "Yeah."</p><p>*</p><p>"Alright, alright, I got you." Sam braces one huge palm against Dean's shoulder, trying to hold him up against the post without hurting him.</p><p>"This is a real...shitshow," Dean wheezes. He can feel the rebar deep inside him, hot and cold at once. Goddamn vampires.</p><p>"You'll be okay," says Sam, frantic, his phone already in his free hand, "let me, let me call an ambulance, just hang on—"</p><p>"Sure would be—" Dean pauses, coughs wetly. He can taste blood, coppery-sweet on his tongue. "—sure would be convenient if, if Cas was here."</p><p>Sam stares at him with wide, uncomprehending eyes.</p><p>"Oh," says Dean eloquently, as his brain kicks into overdrive while, simultaneously, his lungs start to seize weakly on nothing at all. He sees Chuck pop into view just over Sam's shoulder. "Son of a <em>bitch</em>."</p><p>*</p><p>"Just us, huh?"</p><p>"Finally free. Come on, we're burning daylight."</p><p>*</p><p>Dean wakes up in a motel bed.</p><p>*</p><p>Sam hands him a cup of shitty gas station coffee.</p><p>*</p><p>"We saved the world, Sammy, live a little."</p><p>"I am <em>not</em> eating that."</p><p>*</p><p>Dean wakes up in a motel bed.</p><p>*</p><p>"Just us, right?" says Sam.</p><p>Dean stares at Sam over the top of his beer. He has the sudden, wild urge to smash the bottle, shove the shards into Sam's eyes. He fights it off, frightened. "Me and you, Sam."</p><p>*</p><p>"You just don't know when to quit, do you."</p><p>"Fuck off," Dean wheezes. He holds Sam upright with one arm. Sam's head lolls against his shoulder.</p><p>Chuck leans up against the binding circle's invisible boundary. "C'mon, Dean. Can't you feel it? The fraying? All these resets aren't good for your brain, you know. Stop trying to break out of the story. It's not going to end well for you."</p><p>"I'm...I'm not..." Dean coughs. "I'm not going to forget Cas."</p><p>"Ugh," says Chuck. He grimaces. "Fucking spanner. You know, I never had any problems getting you and Sam to play ball in all the other universes where he just did what he was fucking told."</p><p>"So, what, this..." Dean struggles to remain sitting up. "This is just you trying to...fucking redact him out?"</p><p>"Well, maybe if you two didn't keep fucking up my revision work," Chuck seethes. "I'm trying to move <em>on</em>, guys. You think I <em>like</em> having to hover over you in case a fucking butterfly reminds you of the stupid angel and it all goes to shit? Do you have any <em>idea </em>how many sub-levels under the narrative we are now? The quantum mechanics of it would blow your little monkey brain to smithereens."</p><p>"I mean, maybe you should get some sleep," Dean slurs at him. "Take a break. You don't look so good." It's true. Chuck looks—haggard, almost. There are dark hollows under his eyes. Dean wonders if it's just from the ritual Sam cast, if it's all just the spell sapping Chuck's strength. "You gonna...stay dead, this time?"</p><p>Chuck rolls his eyes at the sky. "Sure, Dean," he says sarcastically. He's starting to blur at the edges, pale radiance leaking from fissures in his body as the binding circle slowly closes tighter around him.</p><p>"I won't forget him," Dean says again.</p><p>"You will," says Chuck, cold. Light splits the skin of his face, whites out his glacial eyes. "You are."</p><p>*</p><p>"Sounds like vampires. You wanna swing by, take a look around?"</p><p>"Sure. No rush, right?"</p><p>*</p><p>There's blood on his jacket. He swears and gropes for a handful of napkins.</p><p>"Dean, I've got it." Sam mops up his spilled coffee, puts the mug on the edge of the table so the waitress can refill it.</p><p>Dean blinks at Sam, looks back down at his shoulder. His jacket's fine. Everything's fine.</p><p>*</p><p>Dean wakes up in a motel bed.</p><p>*</p><p>Dean turns away from the last vampire and nearly runs straight into the point of Sam's machete.</p><p>"Jesus!" he yelps. "Sam, watch where the fuck you're aiming that thing!"</p><p>"I—" Sam drops his arms, nearly drops the machete too. His face is bone-pale. "I—sorry Dean, I—"</p><p>"What? What's wrong?" Dean moves closer, alarmed. <em>Take care of Sammy</em> starts to chime in his head, a frantic chorus.</p><p>"Something's not—" Sam presses a hand against his temple. The machete shakes in his hand, like he's fighting the urge to swing it. His eyes move from Dean's chest to Dean's throat. "How much—how much longer to Washington."</p><p>Dean tightens his grip on his own weapon. He can see all the vital points of Sam's body. All the places the blood rolls close to the skin. "Don't ask me that—" he says. "Don't—we have to remember—it's just us—"</p><p>*</p><p>Dean wakes up in a motel bed.</p><p>*</p><p>"Dean, please." It's Cas. It's <em>Cas</em> and he's so alive and so near and so beautiful. Dean drinks in the sight of him.</p><p>"Dean, listen to me."</p><p>"I don't know who you are," Dean says slowly. But no, that's wrong. He knows who Cas is. He knows who Cas is like he knows his own name, like he knows Sam's.</p><p>"Dean, I don't have much time." Cas's eyes are urgent. "We're trying to get you out but I can't—you have to—"</p><p>"You can't be here," says Dean. A tear drips from his chin. He's crying. How long has he been crying for? "You're dead."</p><p>"Well—in the strictest sense I'm not really <em>here</em>," says Cas, impatient, and Dean could almost laugh through his tears, because Cas <em>would</em> take the time to split hairs, even in a fucking hallucination. "But Dean, this is real, I promise you."</p><p>"I don't think it is," says Dean sadly. "I don't think it is, but god, Cas, I wish it was. It's like there's something—something scraped out of my chest, all the time, you know? I think—"</p><p>Cas looks like he might be blinking back tears of his own. "I'm so—I'm so sorry for the pain I've—but I need you to focus, Dean, <em>please</em>."</p><p>"I think I loved you," says Dean. He watches a spasm of shock cross Cas's face, watches it crumple like a house of falling cards.</p><p>"I'm sorry I never said it." Dean doesn't bother to wipe his face. The tears aren't stopping, anyway. "You deserved to hear it. You always deserved more than I—more than I could give you."</p><p>"Dean, please—"</p><p>Dean wakes up in a motel bed.</p><p>*</p><p>They step out of the motel and Dean stumbles to a halt, staring at the dark parking lot.</p><p>"Hey," Sam yelps, as he runs right into Dean. "Watch it—"</p><p>Dean blinks, and it's morning again. The streetlights are all off, <em>obviously</em>, because it's <em>morning</em>, the sun is shining and it's <em>daylight</em>—</p><p>"I need another cup," he grumbles, draining his coffee.</p><p>*</p><p>"How much farther to Washington?"</p><p>"<em>Stop goddamn asking</em>!" Dean snarls. Sam stares at him, startled.</p><p>Dean passes a shaking hand over his face. "I—shit. Sorry." He imagines the bones of Sam's face, crunching under his fist. He can't stop imagining it. "Two days," he mutters. He curls his hands into the fabric of his jacket. "Uh—if we make good time."</p><p>*</p><p>Dean wakes up in a motel bed and Sam is crouched over him, staring down at him with eyes like dark coins.</p><p>"Sam, <em>Christ</em>—" Dean sputters. "You tryin' to get shot—"</p><p>"I don't know," Sam rasps at him, his face as pale as bone, "I don't know how deep we are, Dean—"</p><p>"How deep we are—" Dean stumbles, eyes drawn to the streetlight over Sam's shoulder. "How deep—"</p><p>"What about any of this is real—"</p><p>"—we are—"</p><p>*</p><p>Dean wakes up in a motel bed.</p><p>*</p><p>"Just us."</p><p>"Me and you—it's always—it's always been—"</p><p>*</p><p>Sam hands him a cup of shitty coffee. The road ribbons on forever.</p><p>*</p><p>
  <em>Dean, please, fight this, find a way—</em>
</p><p>*</p><p>Dean's in darkness. He's in an abyss. He's at the bottom of a well, sinking deeper every second. He looks up. If he can just—</p><p>*</p><p>There's blood on his jacket. He reaches across his body, fits his hand to it.</p><p>*</p><p>
  <em>Dean—</em>
</p><p>—a deserted street corner, chill air seeping in through his jacket, streetlights shedding a pale cold radiance—</p><p>—<em>find</em>—</p><p>*</p><p>"The fucking <em>street</em>, Sam!" Dean veers off the road. He drags Baby to a shaky halt on a scrub-edged swath of gravel just beyond the asphalt. Just a few yards away, the terrain drops off into a steep cliff; a battered wooden signpost labels the area as an Award-Winning Scenic Overlook. Dean barely registers it; his vision keeps whiting out with near-panic as his heart hammers against the cage of his ribs. Bile rises in his throat.</p><p>"The <em>street</em>," he yells at the windshield, at Sam, at no one in particular. He wants to smash something. "We're still on that goddamn street corner where we went to surrender to Chuck!"</p><p>The color drains from Sam's face. Behind him, through the window, Dean sees the air waver like a vibrating string; for a moment, despite the broad daylight, he thinks the world has gone dark. Thinks he can see a half-moon blazing in an inky sky.</p><p>They never saved anyone. Jack never brought anyone back. Chuck broke the world and they didn't save it, they can't even save themselves from him now.</p><p><em>Everyone's gone</em>, he thinks. And Cas—<em>Cas</em>—</p><p>"Dean—" Sam is grey-faced, his hands shaking even harder than Dean's. "Dean, how many times—how many times have we—"</p><p>Dean can't think. He can't breathe. He gets the door open and stumbles out of the car, trying not to be sick.</p><p>
  <em>I love you. Don't do this.</em>
</p><p>How many <em>times</em>? How many times have he and Sam been spliced into a narrative out of which Cas has been excised, shelved away like he never mattered at all? How many times has Dean had to feel, again, the punch of shock as he realizes what's supposed to be fitted into the empty chasm under his ribs?</p><p>He staggers away from the Impala, braces one hand against the signpost. Tries not to hyperventilate. Stares out over the edge of the cliff, at the forested ravine far beneath, the valley beyond that stretches out to the hazy blue horizon—all of it might as well be a fucking painting, for all the <em>point</em> there is to it, a fucking photorealistic trap holding them prisoner.</p><p>
  <em>I love you. Don't do this.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I love you.</em>
</p><p>"We have to stop this," Sam whispers. He comes up to Dean, curls his hand into the sleeve of Dean's jacket.</p><p>"How," Dean croaks. "<em>How</em>, Sam. We can't break out of it. Every time we goddamn remember, Chuck hits reset—"</p><p>"You," Chuck snarls from behind them, "are not supposed to be <em>remembering</em> <em>at all</em>."</p><p>Dean turns to face Chuck, who is leaning against the Impala with his arms crossed, a pinched scowl contorting his features.</p><p>Dean squares his shoulders. Sam is plucking frantically at his sleeve. His brain is still stuttering out a pointless tempo of despair and fury, but thankfully his mouth can bite back on autopilot. "Yeah, well, maybe you're not as good at this puppet master shit as you thought you were, huh?"</p><p>"Oh yeah?" Chuck straightens up and advances on them. "How come it's so easy for me to bump you guys back to the starting line again and again? You guys are stubborn, I'll give you that. Guess that's why you were my favorites for so long. But you can't break out of this."</p><p>"<em>Dean</em>," Sam breathes in his ear, <em>"</em>if we're remembering faster, then it's weaker every time, <em>Dean</em>—"</p><p>"You will run this rat maze over and over again," Chuck is hissing, "until your brains are slush and you're clawing each other's throats out because you can't stand the monotony."</p><p><em>We keep trying to beat him</em>, Dean realizes. He can remember the last time, now. Maybe—a few of the times before that. The remembrance is something huge and convoluted and terrifying, and his brain shies away from the actual number. Memory is a labyrinth that'll swallow him whole.</p><p>Sam murmurs, urgent and barely audible, "It's not the same, it ends faster every time—he's <em>weaker</em>, Dean—if we make it harder to reset—"</p><p>Dean feels his pulse mounting. He knocks his knuckles against Sam's wrist, soft enough for it to be unnoticed by anyone else. His heart is in his mouth.</p><p><em>We keep trying to beat him</em>, he thinks again. <em>That's how he's winning. Because we keep playing.</em></p><p>"You know something?" he says to Chuck. He makes his voice loud, brazen, even as he edges away from the advancing deity in front of them, pulling Sam with him. "You're not all that original. But <em>we</em> are. Human ingenuity, buddy. Whatever this weird loop, retcon, rewrite is, you're just reusing the same material over and over. And we're gonna figure it out. Every time."</p><p>"Yeah, and sooner or later, Chuck?" says Sam, matching Dean's bravado even though Dean can feel a tremor running through his brother's bones. "We're going to figure out how to end whatever—<em>whatever</em> this is. And when that happens, you'd better hope you're nowhere near us."</p><p>"Good talk," says Chuck. "But that's really just...not going to happen. You two need to get it through your thick skulls that nothing can happen <em>unless I say so</em>. So go ahead and <em>figure it out</em> as many times as you want, guys. You're just digging yourselves deeper."</p><p>"Must be quite the strain," says Sam, his voice suddenly soft again, a cold knife cutting through the afternoon air. "Restarting the story over and over again. Burying us in endings."</p><p>Chuck shrugs. "Copy and paste. I could do it in my sleep. If I slept."</p><p>"Right," says Dean. "Because they're all alike, aren't they? Some writer. You're just rewinding the tape and hitting play."</p><p>He doesn't think he's imagining the flicker of frustration that crosses Chuck's face. He's <em>sure</em> he isn't. He presses the advantage, injects a note of jeering into his tone. "All these <em>endings</em>, all these little laps you have us running? Fucking predictable. All just variations on the same boring little script."</p><p>Chuck's eyes flash a cold blue fire. "That's the point, isn't it?" All traces of amusement are gone from his expression; his face is hard, his mouth drawn in a petulant line. His voice curls with power, ripples the air like a heat wave. Dean backs up a few more steps, Sam close beside him. "You can't escape the story, Dean. <em>My</em> characters, <em>my</em> script. <em>My</em> ending."</p><p>"Yeah, well, your endings are shit," says Dean. He closes his hand around Sam's arm and they step backwards off the cliff.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>*me bashing the canonical finale to smithereens with a battered keyboard* THE POWER—OF LOVE—COMPELS—YOU—</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. this is the mystery of the quotient</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dean opens his eyes. </p><p>They're in a motel hallway. </p><p><em> That's different</em>, he thinks. </p><p>It’s a fairly substandard hallway, as those places go. The carpet under his feet is dingy and nondescript, and the wallpaper is peeling slightly where it meets the baseboards. Dean glances up and down the hallway and realizes, firstly, that although the doors are all numbered, he can't quite say exactly what those numbers are. Secondly, the hallway doesn't seem to <em>end</em>, at least as far as his eyes can tell. The dim blue glow of what might be a vending machine, far ahead, is the only thing that breaks up the monotony of its endless outstretched symmetry. </p><p>"Dean," Sam says from beside him, his voice cracking. Dean looks over just in time to see Sam sink slowly to his knees. </p><p>"Dean, I c-can't, I <em>can't</em>." Sam's eyes are red-rimmed, his breathing coming in irregular hitches. His thumb is working itself almost unconsciously into the palm of his other hand. "I don't know how—we don't know how deep we are—I can't <em>do </em>this—" </p><p>"Hey." Dean crouches next to Sam, grips his shoulders. Terror curls up and down his spine, because in truth, <em>he </em>doesn't know either. But he tries to steady his voice, tries to convey a conviction he isn't sure he feels. <em>Look out for Sammy</em>. "We're gonna figure it out, okay? We’re somewhere else, right? This is good, this is different. You were right, we made it too hard for Chuck to reset." </p><p>"How do we<em> know</em>—how do we fucking know what's real and what's not," Sam rasps. His mouth wobbles. "Chuck is in our fucking <em>heads</em>, how are we ever going to—" </p><p>"Hey, hey," says Dean again. He catches Sam's wrists, pulls his hands gently apart. It comes to him, then, the answer, or what might be. "Remember them. Cas. Eileen. Jack. Everyone." </p><p><em> Cas</em>, he thinks. <em>Cas, I'm so sorry</em>. His chest aches, a grief so immense he thinks it might split him apart. He sees it mirrored on Sam's face, sees pain distort his brother's features as the memory knifes at them both. Dean makes himself face it head-on: he pries open the agony of it, digs into the raw fissure of loss until he thinks the sorrow might snap him in two. Chuck didn't put that grief inside his chest. Didn't set it off inside him like a bomb, spilling its blades and fire down his spine, up his throat. Dean doesn't know a lot, but he knows that much—this grief is his. <em>You asked what about all this is real</em>. </p><p>The hallway stutters like a bad television feed. The ceiling becomes, for just a split second, a blink-and-you-miss-it moment, the night sky. </p><p>Sam tilts his head back, wide-eyed. The shitty fluorescent lighting glimmers in the tears pooling in his lashes. </p><p>"You saw that, right?" Dean manages. </p><p>"Y-yeah." </p><p>"If we can remember them, it's real." He grips Sam's arms. "Okay, Sammy? It's not just us. It's not." </p><p>Sam presses his lips together, nods jerkily. </p><p>"Okay," says Dean, getting creakily to his feet, pulling Sam with him, "okay, let's figure out where the hell we—" </p><p><em> Door on the left</em>, says a voice inside his head. </p><p>Okay. That’s also new. </p><p>Again, irritated: <em>open the door on your left. </em> </p><p>Sam gapes at him. "Did you hear—?" </p><p><em> OPEN. THE FUCKING DOOR ON THE— </em> </p><p>"Jesus," Dean yelps as the mental klaxon bounces around the inside of his skull. "<em>Alright </em>—" </p><p>Figuring that whatever it is, it can't possibly make their predicament that much worse, he takes two short steps over and yanks open the nearest door. </p><p>"About time," grouses the person standing behind it. </p><p>Dean gapes. "Adam?" </p><p>"Michael," Sam whispers. </p><p>"Both," answers Michael. Or Adam. Whatever. He steps through the doorway, which is showing a view into a completely nondescript space that Dean loses the ability to describe the minute the door swings shut on it. </p><p>"What are <em>you </em>doing here?" says Sam. "We thought—we thought—" </p><p>Dean remembers Chuck burning Michael to smithereens, that blistering pillar of fire by the shore. Remembers, too, that Adam had already been long gone. Exterminated. But that—had been a lie, he reminds himself. Chuck’s false narrative. Maybe Michael really had escaped Chuck’s purging of the Earth, and saved Adam as well, somehow. </p><p>"We need to talk, and<em> here </em>is our best opportunity. Our only opportunity." </p><p>Dean jabs a finger at the dreary wallpaper, which he's almost sure has shifted to a different, albeit equally unmemorable, chintzy pattern since the last time he glanced at it. "And where the <em>hell </em>is here?" </p><p>Michael surveys the hallway, peers up at the flickering light fixtures with mild disinterest. He has his hands tucked in the pockets of that same dull green jacket he wore the day Sam yanked him into the Cage. "A liminal space, existing outside and around the worlds you know." </p><p>"Don't we already have one of those?" Dean mutters. God, he's sick of void dimensions. </p><p>"The...Empty is just one more plane out of many, all of them held together by a membrane, of sorts. A liminal dimension." Michael raises his eyebrows and scuffs a shoe against the threadbare carpet. "I expect its, ah, quaint appearance at the moment is your minds’ effort to not be rendered insane." </p><p>"Sure," says Dean. "Fine. Membrane dimension, whatever. You gonna tell us what the hell is going on?" </p><p>"You were trapped in a narrative tessellation—a set of nested sub-dimensions branching off from your original plotline." </p><p>Sam raises his eyebrows, shoots a look at Dean. "Come again?" </p><p>"The story was a repeating pattern that restarted itself every time you broke its parameters." Michael glances off to the side. "Adam is...telling me not to bother trying to explain the metaphysics of it." </p><p>"Yeah, thanks, that's fine with us," says Dean. Sam, the fucking nerd, has the audacity to look slightly disappointed. "Can you fucking get us out?" </p><p>"You've already gotten yourselves out," says Michael. "Candidly, I didn’t expect you to manage it, but you broke my father’s hold on you. This is all happening in the split second before you wake up in the world. The real one." </p><p>"We weren’t able to break through it, before,” says Sam. “I mean—he was slipping, we could feel it. It was harder for him to reset us, every time.” </p><p>“Yes. It was becoming harder for him to hold you. To hold everything.” </p><p>“But<em> why</em>?” </p><p>Michael purses his lips and looks between the two of them. “Do you understand what it means, that God absorbed the Darkness?” </p><p>“Sure. It makes Chuck more of an ass,” snaps Dean. </p><p>“Listen to me,” says Michael, urgent. “The two of them have not been fused in this way since <em>before </em>creation. It was their sundering that <em>allowed </em>the world to come into existence. This...this rejoining of being, is unprecedented in the history of the universe. And more importantly, it cannot <em>coexist </em>with the universe. God and the Darkness cannot inhabit each other, cannot <em>be </em>one, while the universe exists, so he...<em>they</em>...are becoming something else, something more than the sum of its parts.” </p><p>“So he’s becoming <em>more </em>powerful?” says Sam, horrified. </p><p>“Great,” says Dean. Just what they need, a new rung on the ladder of cosmic douchebags. “Fucking peachy.” </p><p>Michael flicks a hand impatiently. “It doesn’t matter that he’s becoming more powerful. It matters that in a short while, he will no longer be <em>God</em>, as we understand the term, and the world will no longer need him.” </p><p>“Like that’s going to stop him from snapping the universe out of existence!” </p><p>“No one is all-powerful. Not even my father. And I believe...” Michael hesitates. “I believe he did not plan for this. Did not expect this. How could he? Nothing like this has happened in the history of the world, quite literally.” </p><p>“Right, unprecedented, we got that. That doesn’t explain what—" </p><p>Sam cuts in. “And if the world needs a God and he’s not—not<em> God </em>anymore, then—” </p><p>"I know you want answers, but we truly do <em>not </em>have time,” says Michael, with an exaggerated patience that might be more Adam than archangel. “The cosmic chain reaction occurring as we speak is, quite possibly, the only way we will all survive my father. It is nearly complete, but not quite. It is <em>vital </em>that it finishes, and for that we need him to remain <em>in</em> the world, not tangling around in a narrative paradox.” </p><p>“Why should we trust you?” Dean demands. He can’t shake the memory of Michael—real or not—looking at Chuck with such worshipful hunger, such eagerness to please. “Why would<em> you </em>go against Chuck?” </p><p>Michael stares at Dean, the taut urgency bleeding out of his stance for an instant. Dean stares back at the archangel and it strikes him just how<em> old </em>Michael looks, despite the young man’s body and face he’s wearing. <em>Ancient</em>, in a way that even Cas has never looked, nor any of the other archangels. It’s like looking into the face of something primordial. But there’s a warmth there too, a tired compassion that Chuck never had, nor Amara, nor the apocalypse world’s Michael in all his cruel caprice. Dean wonders if it’s just that a thousand years trapped in a Hell prison will do that to a guy, or if it’s something more. </p><p><em>Cas had that warmth too</em>, he thinks, and there’s that grief again, clawing his ribs apart, muscling its way up his chest into his throat. He wonders if this is just how he’ll have to live, from now on. If he’s just going to walk around with sorrow trying to cut his knees out from under him, with this wordless keening always burgeoning in his lungs. </p><p>Something, some brief emotion, finally flits over Michael’s face, nearly indiscernible. </p><p>“I spent so long in service to my father,” he says. “Even after he left me behind, along with the rest of his creation. The things I did—the things I did for <em>him</em>—” </p><p>There’s heartbreak hovering behind Michael’s words. A heaviness like regret, even as his eyes flash in anger, a glint of silver visible for an instant far down behind the pupils. He clenches his jaw, looks away from Dean, down the long empty stretch of the hall. “Now he’s back, and it’s not to apologize. It’s not to be the father we deserved. It’s to wipe us all away like we never mattered. I think I...I finally see what Castiel saw a long time ago. The world is worth saving. We deserve to be more than someone’s discarded story.” </p><p>“Thought you said we ain’t in the business of getting what we deserve,” says Dean tightly. He tries to ignore the lump rising in his throat at the mention of Cas’s name. </p><p>Michael’s stance changes minutely—a subtle shift of the shoulders, of the carriage of his head, and then it’s Adam who says, gentle, “Maybe not. But maybe we should start fighting for it anyway.” </p><p>“What do you need us to do?” says Sam, and Dean can hear the decision in Sam’s voice, knows that his brother has weighed their choices, as he has. Knows that Sam, like Dean, has decided this is their best option. In the end, it doesn’t matter if Michael is trying to play them—they don’t have any other cards at the moment, not to mention that they apparently aren’t even back <em>in </em>the actual world yet. They can’t really afford to be choosey about allies. </p><p>Michael steps back toward the door he just entered through. “You're going to wake up momentarily. My father will be there; he'll try to entrap you again, somehow. You must not let him. He has been in these—these sub-levels, toying with you, and in doing so he is inadvertently avoiding his own fate, as well. You <em>must </em>keep him in the main narrative, stall him for even just a few minutes." </p><p>"And how the fuck are we supposed to do that?" </p><p>"I don't know, improvise," Michael says icily. "Isn't that what the two of you are best at? We’re close by—you only have to manage a short time on your own." </p><p>"And what are you going to do when you get there?" Sam demands. "Chuck's just going to snap you out of existence like he did the rest of the planet." </p><p>Michael grins—no, not Michael; the expression is all Adam. </p><p>"No," says Adam. "He's not.” </p><p> “Oh yeah? How can you be so damn sure?” says Dean, irritated. “Where was all this insider info shit before? We’ve been trying to figure out a way to beat Chuck for<em> months</em>, plus a goddamn lot more time if you count this stupid narrative tess -whatever, and you’re telling us you just—have a plan? <em>How</em>?” </p><p>Michael puts his hand on the knob. “It’s in his book.” </p><p>“But—” </p><p>But Michael—Adam, Michael and Adam—are already opening the door, slipping through the dark gap that opens up. And then they’re gone, and the hallway looks just as it did before. </p><p>“Asshole,” Dean mumbles. He throws up his hands in irritation. </p><p>Sam shrugs helplessly. “Guess we—pick a door and go through it?” </p><p>The walls and ceiling flicker around them again. Dean feels a prickling against the back of his neck. He glances up and down the hall and thinks it looks a bit more blurry than it did before, like it’s fading out of view. </p><p>“I don’t think we’re gonna need to, Sammy,” he says. “Think the world’s coming to us.” </p><p>* </p><p>Dean's feet hit solid ground, Sam's arm a warm anchor point under his palm. He blinks his eyes open and staggers back, feeling his calves bump against familiar metal. </p><p>It's the street corner he’d seen glimpses of, at the edge of the highway, and then again in that motel hallway—the liminal space, Michael had called it. The spot where they first tried to offer Chuck their surrender. A cool breeze raises goosebumps on his arms; streetlights flicker behind Chuck, backlighting his thunderous expression. Dean sags against the Impala. The hood is still warm against the back of his legs. </p><p>"Fuck," Sam wheezes, clutching at Dean's side. "It worked—" </p><p>Dean can't spare the brain cells to be relieved that their last-ditch hail-Mary of a plan somehow sort of succeeded. He was right—they never made it past the goddamn street corner. They never defeated Chuck, never saved the world. He can remember every pointless day of the false narratives, every repetitive racetrack loop Chuck had them running. All fake. </p><p>They escaped one sick game, but they've just traded it for the original board. They’re at Chuck’s mercy again with nothing more than a vague directive to <em>stall him</em>. What can they do? Dean feels something like hysteria rising in his chest. What can they <em>do</em>? Chuck’s still pulling the strings, and the world is still gone. </p><p>Cas is still— </p><p>"Alright, then." Chuck gives the smallest shake of his shoulders. Smooths the rage out of his expression. "Congrats. You two actually did manage to drag your sorry asses out." </p><p>"Why," Dean croaks, all he can manage at the moment. "Why—what was the <em>point</em>—" </p><p>"You actually had the audacity to offer me a white flag?" Chuck sneers. "<em>Now</em>, after I've already won? Thinking you could find some kind of nobility in giving yourselves up for the world? That's not who you are. The reality is, the two of you only care about each other. So that's what I gave you a little taste of. All eternity, caring only about yourselves, believing that you’ve won. Dancing a little stage routine for me, too stupid to realize you've actually lost—now <em>that's </em>the kind of surrender I'm talking about." </p><p>Sam takes a step forward, his breath hitching. "So—all of that—Lucifer, Michael, Jack draining your power—" </p><p>"We covered this, Sammy," says Chuck. "Big fake epilogue to tease you out into the open." </p><p>"And every time after that—" </p><p>"Every time you thought you killed me, you just dug yourselves deeper." Chuck sticks his hands into his pockets, unfurls a sly smirk. "I <em>buried </em>you in endings." </p><p>"Not deep enough," Sam says, a tremulous, furious grin splitting his face like a sickle moon. </p><p>"That's right," Dean manages to chime in. He fights down the anguish and panic still swelling in the pit of his stomach. "If that was your best play, I got bad news for you, asshole." </p><p>Chuck's eyes are cold, even as his voice continues to affect joviality. "Whatever. Consider this a snack break, huh? Catch your breath, we’ll start again.” </p><p>“Wait,” says Dean, panicked. <em>Stall him</em>. He looks wildly around at the surrounding buildings, but nothing stirs in the shadows beyond the streetlights’ radiance. “Wait—wait.” </p><p>“You put us back in, we’ll fight our way out,” Sam says breathlessly. His eyes blaze; his fists are clenched. </p><p>“Unless,” says Dean. “Unless you put the world back.” </p><p>Chuck rolls his eyes at the dark sky. “We’ve been over this—” </p><p>“Put the world back, and <em>Cas</em>,” Dean interrupts. “You don’t want us dead? You want us suffering for the rest of time? That’s fine. We’ll live in your game. Do whatever the fuck you like, and we’ll let you. Just <em>bring them back. </em>” </p><p>He sees Cas again, in his mind’s eye. Dying in that little windowless room. Engulfed by the dark void. Dying for Dean. </p><p>Dean will go—into the labyrinth. He’ll run Chuck’s maze, if it spares the world. But not before—not if he has to leave Cas in that place.  </p><p>“You said yourself,” he blurts, desperate. “Cas is why we kept remembering, right? You can’t just make us forget about him. It’s not going to work. But you—you bring him back, you bring them <em>all </em>back, and we’ll—we’ll stay in your fake reality, whatever.” He shoots a quick glance at Sam, sees Sam’s tiny, jerky nod—his brother agreeing to this, whether it’s a diversion or their actual fate. The two of them trapped in the prison of an eternal, isolated narrative, as long as their loved ones are safe in the real world. </p><p>“Please,” he says again. He takes a step forward, lifting his hands, almost in supplication. He doesn’t know if whatever harebrained plan Michael has hatched is going to work, but if he can—if Chuck can bring back Cas, at least— </p><p>“You want us to suffer? Done. You don’t think we’re going to suffer, trapped in some fucking awful ending, knowing that we’ll never see anyone we care about again? Trust me, we will. Just bring Cas—” </p><p>Chuck slashes his hand abruptly through the air. "Shut <em>up</em>." </p><p>There’s a crackle of power, too fast and full of whiplike intent to dodge. Dean cries out as pain surges through him like an electric current, dropping him rigidly to his knees. It passes after a moment, but he’s still paralyzed, frozen in place with his eyes fixed helplessly forward and the words trapped in the back of his throat. At the edge of his vision he can see Sam doubled over, straining against the same invisible hold. </p><p>“Cas this, Cas that,” Chuck snarls. He paces closer, driving right into Dean’s space, bending down toward him. Dean struggles to move, to speak, to turn his face. He can do none of those things. </p><p>Chuck reaches out and twists a hand into Dean’s hair, forces his head up. “You know what, Dean?” His voice goes low and dark and dangerous, like bladed silk. </p><p>“I would <em>love </em>to bring Castiel back. You are such a fucking pain in my ass, you know that? I would <em>love </em>to bring him back, work him like a sock puppet, and use him to finally shut—you—<em>up</em>.” His voice drops another octave and suddenly Dean’s not looking at a slight, squirrelly man with dark scruff and dancing eyes. He’s looking at something primeval, unknowable, barely housed in its human shell. Some terrible capricious hateful thing that stares him down and sees him as an insect, a speck of grime. </p><p>“I’d have him hurt you.” Chuck spans his fingertips against the back of Dean’s head, presses his thumb against Dean’s cheekbone. He presses so hard Dean thinks it’s leaving a bruise, thinks his skull might crunch and warp under the pressure. “I’d have him awake and <em>watching</em>, the whole time I was using his limbs to carve you apart. Let you try to tell him you don’t blame him, all while he has his hands wrist-deep in your guts.” He glances to the side. “Sam could probably tell you something about that.” </p><p>Sam makes a low sound, the tendons in his neck standing out like cords, almost vibrating with the strain as he tries to turn his head. Chuck returns his attention to Dean. </p><p>“I’d have him kill you, Dean,” he says, cold. “Slowly. Intimately. <em>Agonizingly</em>. And then I’d give him a minute, just to look, just to let it really sink in, and then I’d crush him to a pulp. And let Sam try to scrape the two of you apart for the funerals.” </p><p>Slowly, he relaxes his hand. Sweeps Dean’s hair back from his forehead, a mocking gesture of tenderness. “Unfortunately, Dean, I <em>can’t </em>bring Castiel back. He’s beyond saving.” </p><p>Dean finds himself able to speak again, though his limbs are still locked rigidly in place. “No,” he rasps, disbelieving. </p><p>“Fraid so,” says Chuck, and smiles a terrible, pleasant smile. “Things have been different, ever since the Empty woke up. New rules. New preventative measures. I can’t go plucking things out of the old void warehouse like I used to. Can’t even<em> sense </em>Castiel, you know that? He’s buried so deep in there that he’s probably part of the bedrock, if he hasn’t been deconstructed into miserable smithereens by now. So you can save your breath on bargaining, because that particular subplot is out of my hair for good, and you know what? Good <em>fucking </em>riddance.” </p><p><em> He’s lying</em>, Dean thinks, but he looks into this deity’s face, and he knows it’s not. </p><p>Cas. Cas is. </p><p>Cas is <em>gone</em>— </p><p>“Now,” Chuck is purring, and he almost seems to glow with barely restrained glee, “I believe we have another, <em>much </em>more foolproof draft to get back to.” </p><p>There's a rustle of wings, and a voice from off to the left says, "No more drafts." </p><p>Chuck looks up, squints at Michael, who’s materialized out of the night just a few feet away. "Could have sworn I snapped away just about everyone on this damn planet," he says testily. "Angels included." </p><p>Jack steps out of the thin air behind Michael, and Dean tenses against the power holding his limbs in place, because that isn't right—Jack doesn't have his powers, and he's—he's not a god, not in the real world, not outside of that fake ending Chuck had embedded them into. </p><p>"I called to him," says Jack softly. "While your attention was focused on Sam and Dean." He's standing so close to Michael that their hands are brushing. "Guess you missed him, when you were wiping the map." </p><p>Chuck laughs in their faces. “So you’re throwing in with the humans, Michael? I gotta say, even for you, this is pretty <em>colossally </em>stupid. This because I missed your last couple thousand birthdays?” </p><p>“No,” says Michael. </p><p>“Yeah? There another reason you decided to pick the losing side?” </p><p>Michael’s face doesn’t change, except that the corner of his mouth tugs up just slightly, an expression that isn’t quite a smile, and isn’t quite <em>not </em>a smile. “Because of him.” </p><p>"<em>Him</em>?” says Chuck in disbelief, eyebrows shooting up as his gaze flicks over to Jack. </p><p>There’s that subtle, unmistakable change again—Michael’s shoulders relaxing slightly, the set of his jaw altering. </p><p>“Me,” says Adam. </p><p>Chuck stares for a moment, then barks another laugh, throwing his head back. “Oh, that’s just perfect. Let me guess, he sold you on humanity’s many charms—what did it for you, the mundane joy of baseball games? Sunsets? Two-day shipping? You picked a real savvy time to bet on the Earth, Michael.” </p><p>Michael tilts his head, a gesture so reminiscent of Cas that Dean would look away if he could move. "You think that because you made the world, you aren't <em>of </em>it? That you aren't a part of it? Well, you are. And the world exists according to a cosmic balance that <em>you </em>broke.” </p><p>“There is no cosmic balance,” says Chuck. “I’m the whole damn scale.” </p><p>“When you absorbed Amara, you set your own end in motion. This world didn't come into being until the two of you split apart—what do you think will happen now that you've joined again, for the first time since creation?" </p><p>"So the world goes right back out of being? No skin off my back." Chuck lifts his arms in a half-shrug. "Saves me the trouble of pressing the big red button myself." </p><p>"It's not the world that will end," says Michael sternly. "It's you." </p><p>"Don't make me<em> laugh</em>." </p><p>"No, see,” says Jack, and he’s almost fucking <em>earnest </em>as he speaks, "you've...one-upped yourself out of the playing field, more or less. You leveled up too hard. The power you absorbed from Amara? Both your beings, joined together? You can't exist as one entity, not in this world or any other. God and Darkness aren’t going away. But they’re...flowing downhill. Moving on from you.” </p><p>"Power runs like water," Michael says. “It’s channeling into the next two most powerful beings in creation.” </p><p>"And who would those be?” Chuck sneers. But he looks uncertain, suddenly. </p><p>"The last living archangel," says Michael. "And a nephilim." He tucks his hands into his jacket pockets again—it seems to be a habit for him, or maybe it’s something of Adam’s that he’s absorbed, or maybe it's neither of those—maybe it’s just Adam, himself, peeping through like starlight through a crack in a roof. "Interesting, isn't it, how I escaped your notice, when you were purging this earth? Almost as if...as if your power mistook me for a reflection of its own particular light. And...as for the Darkness..." </p><p>"Jack," Sam says, his voice strangled. </p><p>Jack gives them a sad smile. He extends his hand towards a nearby flowerbed and the plants wither before his palm. "I figured it out." </p><p>"That's...not possible," says Chuck. "You can't...this can't happen."  </p><p>"I mean, seems like we're in pretty uncharted territory," Dean pipes up, because he <em>can </em>apparently continue moving his vocal cords and also apparently doesn't know when to let well enough alone. "Guess anything can happen." </p><p>"It is<em> already </em>happening," says Michael. “Jack and I could not stop this, even if we wanted to. All we can do is bear witness to what <em>you’ve </em>set in motion. You’ve written your own fate, just as you’ve been so accustomed to writing the fate of others, all this time.” </p><p>“Bear witness to<em> this</em>,” Chuck spits, and snaps his fingers. The air around him vibrates with power, and Dean feels something invisible blitz past him like a searing desert wind. </p><p>Nothing happens. Michael and Jack blink solemnly back at Chuck, who takes a half step back, his mouth opening slightly for a moment before he clenches it into a hard, furious line. </p><p>“You aren’t God anymore,” says Jack quietly. “You’re something new. You don’t belong to this world anymore, and it doesn’t belong to you. Neither do we.” </p><p>Chuck's face is livid, his fists clenched. "Have you forgotten what I am?<em> Who </em>I am?" He jabs a stubby finger in their general direction. "You think you and your little coalition are gonna—what, kick me out of the world that <em>I </em>made? Where exactly do you think I'm going, huh? News flash, I'm at the top of the food chain already, guys! Nowhere higher up to go!" </p><p>"Oh, there is one place," says Michael. </p><p>The gunshot rings out like the toll of a bell, echoing across the empty parking lot. </p><p>Chuck looks down at the dripping, blue-black hole in his chest. His eyes widen. It's almost comical. "Sh—" </p><p>His body dissolves. Between one moment and the next, it turns grey and brittle, webbed with cracks as if it's some kind of decaying monument. The grey soaks through Chuck’s skin, floods his face. Petrifies his slackened jaw and clouds his eyes to an opaque chalkiness. </p><p>And then Chuck flakes apart like ash, a million feathery fragments collapsing through the air, melting on impact with the dark tarmac. </p><p>Dean feels the iron bands around his limbs and chest suddenly release him. He jerks to his feet, gasping for breath. On his right, Sam is straightening up as well, a palm pressed against his chest as he stares around wildly. </p><p>Dean rips his eyes away from the spot where Chuck—where<em> God</em>—had just stood. He realizes that he’s tensing without meaning to, bracing for a blinding flash, for some torrent of light and sound. Almost on instinct, he runs through the list in his mind. Cas. Bobby, Charlie, Donna, Jody, Eileen. It goes on and on. He remembers them all. The grief still aches in the space under his ribs. <em>Real</em>. </p><p>"What the fuck was that?" he rasps at the pair of—apparently—newly minted deities standing off to the left. The echoes of the shot that—that killed Chuck, that turned him to <em>dust </em>—are still jangling faintly through the air like distant chimes, lingering in a way no normal sound should. </p><p>"Dean, there," Sam reaches for him as if on instinct, though they’re not standing close enough to touch. With his other hand, he points. </p><p>There's a figure standing near the far intersection, on the corner of the block, their face hidden by shadow. Dean tenses. “Something we should be worried about?” he mutters tersely to Michael, not taking his eyes away from whatever the hell this new calamity is. </p><p>The figure starts to move. Towards them. The streetlights shatter one by one as it approaches, plunging the asphalt into darkness. </p><p>Dean goes hot all over, then cold. The sparking lights, the crash and snarl of breaking glass. Sense memory rears its head in his brain and he hears his own breath begin to stutter like a faulty record. </p><p>"Dean," says Michael softly, compassionately, "do you know why it is always a reaper, who becomes the next Death?" </p><p>"What?" says Dean, distracted, still staring down the street. His brain feels like it’s working at half speed, tripping over the influx of too much information, too many dots outlining a shape he hasn’t quite filled in yet. "I don't—chain of command? Why does this—?" </p><p>"No," says Michael. "It is because reapers work in Death's library. Because they are near Death, touched by Death,<em> suffused </em>in the energy of Death's small corner of the cosmos. It is not that the next <em>reaper </em>to die becomes Death. It is the next of <em>any </em>who die having set foot in the library recently enough that the mark of Death is upon them." </p><p>"Alright, so then—so then it would be—" Dean falters. “It would be<em>—</em>” <em>No</em>, he thinks. The world swims around him. <em>It can't be</em>. </p><p>"What?" says Sam urgently. He must have moved, because Dean feels Sam’s fingers on his sleeve now, curling into the fabric, holding him steady, and it’s only then that Dean realizes he’d been swaying on the spot. "<em>What</em>, Dean?" </p><p>The last streetlamp quakes but doesn’t shatter, as the figure finally steps into its pool of colorless light, in that deserted street corner in Lebanon in the middle of the night at the end of the world. </p><p>"Holy shit," Sam whispers. </p><p>His hair is more unkempt than usual, to the point that Dean is reminded of his first entrance, in that dilapidated barn so many years ago. The trench and suit are gone—he's wearing dark jeans, a plain shirt, a slim-fitting leather coat that looks like it belongs on the set of a Matrix film. </p><p>And a ring. </p><p>"<em>Cas</em>," Dean chokes out. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>...me, forcing gentle readers everywhere to wade through oceans of angst before we get to a happy ending? IT'S MORE LIKELY THAN YOU THINK</p><p>(on a more serious note, I sincerely hope everyone's enjoying the story so far—thank you SO much all for the comments and responses, they've really warmed my heart and I'm so encouraged by them! you're all amazing &lt;3)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. this is the wonder of devotion</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>this is a long one &lt;3 I thought about splitting it into two chapters but couldn't decide where best to split it (and didn't want to draw out the angst TOO much longer) so here it is, all together.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Cas comes to a halt in front of them. He glances at Michael and Jack, gives the tiniest of nods before turning to face Dean and Sam. The long black coat sways a little as he moves, the leather glimmering faintly in the radiance from the one remaining streetlight. He has a rifle tucked under his arm—a sleek, modern-looking thing, black with silver chasing. "Hello, Dean. Sam." </p><p>He sounds the same. Everything about him looks different, but his voice is the same, it’s <em> Cas’s </em>voice, the rough gravel of it, the susurrus of warmth under all that solemnity. Dean supposes that he's focusing on these inane details because the alternative is wrestling with something too vast to hold onto. With the way the world has turned upside-down on him. </p><p><em> He’s beyond saving</em>, Chuck had said. </p><p>And yet he’s <em> here</em>. Dean can’t stop staring, can’t stop drinking in the sight of him, the nearness of him, the <em> aliveness </em> of him. He’s here, and he’s <em> Cas</em>, except he’s—he’s also in Death’s clothes, wearing Death’s ring, with eyes that are— </p><p>Endless, although that isn’t new. Cas’s eyes were always that—depth and stars and seas and the unknowable hint of things beyond mortal comprehension and yet still so <em> human</em>, no matter how Dean tried to tell himself Cas wasn’t. Human. Couldn’t be. And certainly isn’t now. </p><p>He sees Cas in that storage room, again. Tears smeared into his smile, clotted in his dark lashes. Voice aching around the words. <em> I love you. </em> </p><p><em> I love you</em>, Cas said, and then he died, and here he is again, something different. Something new. </p><p>Sam’s mouth is hanging open. "You're...you're..." </p><p>Cas looks almost embarrassed. He runs his hand through his hair, tousling it even further. The ring winks in the streetlight, flashing like a tiny star. "Yes." </p><p>"Where's...where's the scythe," says Dean, blankly. </p><p>Cas blinks. He half-lifts the gun. "Yes, well...it seems to have modernized, somewhat." </p><p>"You," says Sam. "You just...killed God." </p><p>"Well," Jack offers, from the sidelines, "he wasn't really God anymore." </p><p>Which, well. Brings them back to the situation at hand, Dean supposes. He turns to rake his eyes over Jack, who...looks the same, honestly. A little out of place. A little awkward, a little too earnest, a little too kind. </p><p><em> Like Cas</em>, some traitorous, tender part of Dean’s brain supplies. He quashes the thought. </p><p>“So, you and Michael? You’re...what, God and...Amara?” He stares at Jack, half-expecting the kid to shapeshift into a willowy woman with fathomless eyes. </p><p>Jack touches his chest. “I can feel...an echo of her. The power that she was. It lives in me now. So, a part of her does, too.” </p><p>“Are you still...I mean, are you still...?” </p><p>“Human?” Jack supplies, and the corner of his mouth quirks. “Angel? Nephilim?” </p><p>“Yeah.” </p><p>“As much as he ever was,” says Michael. “And more. Just as Adam and I, as we are...well.” He flexes the fingers of one hand, looks down at it as though examining a slide under a microscope. “Human, angel, more.” </p><p>“Cool. So the Darkness is, uh, a three-year-old nephilim. And God is...our half-brother plus his archangel cellmate. And Death...” </p><p>He can’t finish the sentence. </p><p>
  <em> Death is my best friend. Death is the idiot who pulled my ass out of hell and then died for me and died for me and died for me. Death is the guy who said I love you but only because he knew he was about to die for me again, one last time.</em>
</p><p>“I told you that the changes on the horizon were shifts on a cosmic scale,” says Michael, who frankly sounds fed up with having to explain this again. “This is a new world order, Dean.” </p><p>“Right,” says Dean. “Well, me and Sam, we didn’t exactly get in on the whole new job thing, so we’re, you know, still concerned with the <em> old </em>world. Which, I don’t know if you noticed...” </p><p>“Can you bring them back,” Sam says. His voice trembles a little, and Dean thinks, <em> real</em>. “All of them.” </p><p>Michael nods. “Yes. What was done can be undone.” He looks at Jack. “Nephew?” </p><p>Jack nods, the resolute expression on his face somehow making him look even younger. He trails after Michael and Dean watches the two of them take a couple steps away—not far, just a few yards. <em> Must not be much of a blast radius on this one</em>, Dean thinks, feeling slightly hysterical. He shoots a look at Cas, expecting him to head over there too, given that he’s the third member of this new cosmic trinity or whatever. But bringing back everyone who got snapped into oblivion must not be something that requires Death’s help, because Cas just stands there, gun tucked under his arm, studying him. <em> Shit</em>. Studying <em> Dean</em>. </p><p>Sam glances between them for a moment, his head swiveling so quick it sounds like his neck is actually cricking, and then he mumbles something unintelligible and edges past them, toward where Michael and Jack are now having some kind of murmured conversation near the withered shrubbery. </p><p>Which leaves. Dean and Cas.  </p><p>“It’s,” Dean manages. “It’s good to see you.” </p><p>He could kick himself for how inadequate the words are. He stares like he can sear Cas into his brain, overwrite the memory of Cas being swallowed up by the Empty, those few scant seconds that are going to haunt him forever. <em> I thought you were gone</em>, is all he can think. <em> I thought you were gone forever</em>. </p><p>“How—how long have you been back?” he tacks on hastily. </p><p>Jesus, he wants to touch Cas. He wants to close the distance between them, put his arms around Cas, press their foreheads together. He wants, he wants. </p><p>Cas, who had opened his mouth after Dean’s first sentence, closes it again and furrows his brow in thought. “Not long,” he says finally. “This...becoming, it takes time.” </p><p>“Does it hurt?” Dean blurts, before he can stop himself. </p><p>“More than it should have,” says Cas. “I...rushed things. Unfortunately, even with my haste, by the time I had obtained and read God’s book and returned to this plane, Chuck had already pulled you into the narrative tessellation.” </p><p>“Michael said he didn’t think we’d make it out.” </p><p>Cas frowns again. “It was fortunate you did. We didn’t have a way to draw Chuck out, from here. But you and Sam, you broke free and forced him to return to the flow of time.” </p><p>“You would have figured something else out,” says Dean. He grins weakly, makes a vague gesture. “I mean, you're a literal horseman of the apocalypse, Cas. You didn’t need us.” </p><p>The streetlight over their heads flickers as something crosses over Cas's face, an indecipherable expression. Dean tries not to read too hard into it. The guy's <em> Death </em> now—that's got to come with some changes. Some...inhuman things. Dean feels something clench miserably in his chest. He can't stop looking at Cas. The windswept <em> otherness </em> of him that is somehow still so achingly familiar. For a moment he imagines just saying it. Cas is Death but maybe Dean could say it anyway. <em> I love you. Don’t leave me again. I know you’re a literal godlike entity now but just...don’t leave. </em> Imagines their open mouths meeting like currents in the endless sea. </p><p>"I tried to reach you," says Cas finally. He hesitates. Looks down at the asphalt, darts his eyes back up to meet Dean’s. “I think—I might have gotten through, in dreams—” </p><p>It hits Dean, then, the memory surfacing like a drowned ghost from the depths. His dream of Cas, Cas’s desperate pleas for him to fight. Cas had reached him, even through those folded layers of illusion. Cas had tried to pull him out, tried to save him. And Dean had— </p><p>Fuck. Dean had said—he’d said—he’d <em> told </em>Cas how he felt— </p><p>So Cas knows. He has to know. And he hasn’t said anything. Hasn’t brought it up. Hasn’t closed the distance of those scant few feet remaining between them. Hasn’t pulled Dean against him so that Dean can press his face into the side of his neck and say <em> I missed you</em>—<em>I missed you</em>—so that Dean can tell him what he’s only said in dreams, till now— </p><p>Cas <em> knows</em>, and he’s just standing there, in those strange dark clothes, with that ring on his hand and with power rippling invisibly off him like a silent maelstrom. </p><p>Because—oh, of <em> course</em>, it’s so clear—because Cas had loved him, before, but Cas isn’t the same now. <em> Nothing </em> is the same now. This isn’t just Cas looking at him through tears, marveling over Dean like Dean’s something special—this isn't just Cas trapped in that room with Dean with no other recourse than to sacrifice himself <em> again</em>. This isn’t Cas having lost everything because of Dean, this isn’t Cas having spent so long in the mundane grime of humanity’s best shitty hits that anything would start to look good, even someone as fucked-up as Dean. <em> This </em> Cas has power and purpose and a place in the cosmic order of things and doesn’t need Dean, never <em> should’ve </em> needed Dean, never <em> would have </em> needed Dean, if Dean hadn’t stripped him of all that power in the first place, hadn’t persuaded Cas to bat for a shitty, losing team and fight a shitty, losing war. </p><p>Dean trembles all over with the finality of it. It’s a blade slipping between his ribs, twisting deep. </p><p>It’s too goddamn late, he realizes. Because Cas said<em> I love you </em> and then Cas <em> died</em>, and now Cas is a cosmic being, a fundamental girder of the universe made incarnate, and whatever Cas felt, whatever <em> could’ve </em>happened between them, if Dean had managed to get his head out of his ass any of those long years he wasted—that isn’t on the table now. Dean didn’t have jack shit to offer an angel even if he could’ve managed to enough courage to make a move, and he’s got even less he can offer a deity, or something like one. </p><p>"I don't remember," says Dean finally, grimacing in apology as he takes the easy way out. <em> Coward</em>, he tells himself, but what does it matter now, anyway? His chest aches. "Sorry, man, things were so messed up in there. I think I remember some weird dreams, but...uh. Nothing specific.” </p><p>For a heartbeat, Cas just stares at Dean, his lips slightly parted, his expression skewing close to something like anguish. Dean doesn’t know why Cas is looking at him like that. He parts his own lips, thoughts crowding behind his teeth, wordless, pointless. What can he possibly say, now? The fuck does an <em> I love you </em> mean to Death? </p><p>There’s a sudden, subsonic shiver that runs through the night, passes through him like a tidal sweep of sun-warmed air. And the world...changes. There’s sound, motion, vibrancy. The rustle of some small animal ducking into deeper shadow. Dean breaks away from Cas’s gaze and pivots on the spot, staring at the moths flitting greedily around the streetlight’s pale glow, the cars suddenly gliding through the nearest intersection, the people locking up their stores for the night as though it’s only an ordinary evening in Lebanon, and not the day the world nearly ended. </p><p>“Son of a bitch,” Dean says. His voice comes out hushed. Maybe he hadn’t really believed it was possible. He stares at Michael and Jack, who are ambling back across the street with Sam like they didn’t just restore a goddamn planet back to functionality. “They really did it.” </p><p>Sam’s phone is bursting a flurried series of chimes. Sam swipes at the screen, covers his mouth with his free hand. “Dean,” he croaks, hushed. “Eileen, she just texted me—and Donna, too—Bobby, Charlie, Stevie, Jody—everyone's <em> back</em>, Dean.” </p><p>Dean exhales, closes his eyes for a moment as it washes through him. They’re back. They’re <em> okay</em>. For a moment the sheer fucking impact of it—the knowledge that they <em> haven’t </em> lost everyone they’ve ever loved—threatens to knock him sideways; he has to press his knuckles against his sternum as something in him judders with raw, aching relief. <em> Real</em>. </p><p>He glances at Cas and immediately wishes he hadn’t, because there’s such <em> warmth </em> in Cas’s eyes, and it makes—it makes his chest hurt more, makes the longing worse, makes it bite deeper— <em> god</em>, he was always so good at keeping this shut tightly away, before. And it’s like Cas ripped that all down. It's like he stripped away all the walls that were supposed to keep it under control, at the same time he was stripping all of Dean’s fears bare, in that room in the Bunker, when he was looking Dean in the eye and saying <em> you fought for this whole world for love, you changed me, I love you</em>. <em> I love you</em>, like it was the easiest thing in the world to say. Like Dean was the easiest thing in the world to love. </p><p>Sam scrubs at his eyes with the heel of his hand. “So what now?” he asks, frowning at Michael. “What will you—” </p><p>“Adam and I will go to Heaven,” says Michael. “There’s work to be done, there.” </p><p>“Will the angels,” Sam starts, and grimaces, “I mean, will they be—alright with this?” </p><p>“With <em> you</em>?” Dean adds, more pointedly. “Don’t think this exactly matches up with their regularly scheduled programming.” </p><p>"They’re gonna have to take it or leave it,” says Adam drily, and Dean must be getting used to talking to two people at once because he doesn’t even startle at the change this time. Adam blinks and shifts the set of his jaw, and it’s Michael who sighs next and adds, “I’m sure some explanations will be needed. But...well, we are what we are.” </p><p>Sam turns to Jack. “Are you going to Heaven, too?” </p><p>“No,” says Jack. “I thought I’d...” He chews his bottom lip. “I thought I’d come back to the Bunker. With you guys. If...if that’s okay.” </p><p>“Of course it’s okay,” says Sam, looking startled. “But—are you sure? Don’t you...I don’t know, are there, um, Darkness things you have to do?” </p><p>Michael shrugs. “The Darkness was long locked away from this world. Jack should walk the earth, become more acquainted with creation. And...it isn’t right for us to pull strings, not the way my father did, but being <em> close </em>to humanity, without trying to control them—” He hesitates. “It’s important,” he says, finally. He touches his own chest, a gesture that looks almost unconscious, and glances at Jack. “And we are more than a little human, ourselves.” </p><p>Jack glances at Dean, his face cautious as he reconfirms. “So—I can—?” </p><p>“Yeah,” says Dean. And he finds himself glad—glad that Jack at least is coming back with them, that Jack’s room at least won’t be empty. “Yeah, kid, absolutely.” Belatedly, he wonders if he should stop calling Jack <em> kid</em>. </p><p>Jack smiles a little, an expression so full of childlike pleasure that Dean thinks it’d be easy to forget he’s looking at one-half of the beings that power the literal universe. </p><p>“I will see all of you again, I’m sure,” says Michael. His hands have found their way into his pockets yet again. Dean has a mental image of Michael holding court in Heaven like this, wrinkled green jacket and everything, amid a sea of suited angels. </p><p>Michael inclines his head slightly in their direction, and vanishes. </p><p>Which leaves— </p><p>“You’ll come back with us?” Sam says to Cas, his voice pitching up, making it into a question rather than a statement. </p><p>For a moment Dean allows himself to hope. It doesn’t make sense, but for just an instant he imagines the four of them getting into the Impala. Cas’s knees bumping against the back of the driver’s seat. His gaze meeting Dean’s through the rearview mirror, as Dean drives his family home. </p><p>“There...there are some things I need to attend to,” Cas says, slowly. He fidgets, hesitates. </p><p>"Right,” Dean says immediately, filling the pause. He can’t bear this, can’t bear watching Cas search for the words to tell them he isn’t coming back. “You’ve probably got a bunch of reapers to corral, or something. Library books to reshelve.” He almost laughs, then—because it’s so absurd, his little fantasy of Cas returning to the Bunker with them. Dean’s so stupid. Death doesn’t ride in the backseat of Dean’s car, Death doesn’t have a bedroom just down the hall from Dean’s, Death <em> certainly </em>doesn’t have a home in bumfuck Kansas with a middle-aged hunter with a bad knee and—and— </p><p>“Apocalypse is over,” he hears himself continuing, with a forced cheer that sounds tinny even to his own ears. Sam is looking at him like he’s grown a second head. “I think we’ll be okay without Death hovering over our shoulders keeping an eye on us.” </p><p>Because he doesn’t want Cas to think—he doesn’t want Cas to think Dean can’t handle it, that Dean’s going to—going to try to stop Cas from doing his job, from whatever continued process of <em> becoming </em> he needs to sort out. He's not going to delude himself into thinking he can <em> have </em> Cas, just because Cas looks and sounds so much the same now as he did then, when he’d said—what he said. Just because Dean was a lovesick idiot in a grieving dream in a fake reality and blurted out an <em> I love you </em> like it was the simplest thing in the world. Dean doesn't get to <em> keep </em>Cas. He knows that—he's always known that. Cas has always had to leave—that, at least, isn’t any different now. </p><p>(<em>Don’t leave</em>, he thinks. His eyes sting.) </p><p>“I...yes. I have no doubt you will,” says Cas. He nods, a slight motion as if confirming something to himself. He doesn’t meet Dean’s eyes, not really. “Goodbye, Dean, Sam.” </p><p>And then. He leaves. </p><p>* </p><p>Eileen’s waiting for them when they get back to the Bunker. She shoves up from the war room table as the three of them come down the stairs—Sam at the front, practically taking the steps two at a time, the big idiot, and Jack trailing not far behind. Dean comes down last. Hangs back a step, to watch his little brother catch Eileen in his arms as she launches herself at him. Sam half-spins her, his arms tight around her waist, his face buried in her hair. </p><p>“Glad you made it,” Dean tells her, when Sam finally sets her down. </p><p>“Almost didn’t,” she laughs, pushing her hair back from her face. “Some jerk took my car while I was gone.” </p><p>Sam has the grace to blush, though he’s still smiling—hasn’t <em> stopped </em>smiling, since they entered the Bunker. His hand slides out to catch Eileen’s. Dean watches them twine their fingers together. It makes something tighten in Dean’s chest, to watch. It’s happiness, but not it's not <em>just</em> happiness—there's a hollowness too, something aching under his ribs. It unsettles him; he looks away and occupies himself with unpacking their bags. </p><p>* </p><p>There’s plenty to <em> keep </em>him occupied, too, over the next several days. He spends a good portion of the time giving the Bunker a good thorough cleaning, which is sorely needed. In fairness it hadn’t been their top priority during the literal end of the world. And there’s groceries to buy, and meals to cook, and a salt and burn a couple counties over to handle, and the new normal to adjust to. </p><p>Dean tries to remind himself regularly that they saved the world, or at least helped. He reminds himself that Chuck is gone—that he’s <em> free</em>, they’re all free, they <em> fought </em> for it and they <em> got </em> it and if the victory feels hollow, well, maybe that’s just life. He certainly does <em> not </em> spend his time thinking about Cas, out there as Death doing god-knows-what, and he does <em> not </em> catch himself half-hoping every time he hears the Bunker’s front door open, he does <em> not </em>furiously tidy up Cas’s already painfully sparse bedroom for no reason since its former owner certainly no longer needs it. </p><p>Eileen’s over almost every day, updating the archive catalogues or cleaning her weapons on the map table or doing research in the library while Sam makes googly eyes at her over the top of his lore notes. Her company comes with the added bonus of distracting Sam, who’s been shooting Dean the kind of thoughtful, hesitant looks that Dean knows from unfortunate experience always herald an upcoming Conversation. </p><p>Dean has a pretty good idea of what said conversation is going to entail and he’s not in the mood to have it with <em> himself</em>, much less with his earnestly insufferable lug of a brother, so he has all the more reason to be grateful for Eileen occupying Sam’s attention. Dean’s caught the two of them kissing in the archives at least twice now, Sam always turning brick red while Eileen for her part just looks amused. Dean really, desperately wants to resent them, but he can’t—he likes Eileen far too much, for one, and even if he didn’t, he’d have to be blind not to see how radiant Sam always is around her. He <em> can’t </em>resent them, even if the way they touch each other’s shoulders as they walk by each other opens up something inside him, a ragged chasm that makes it hard to breathe. </p><p>As for Jack, Dean hasn’t actually seen much of the kid. He supposes Jack could be spending a fair amount of time outside the Bunker—catching up with Michael or Cas on...universe business, or whatever. He knows that Jack is <em> around</em>—Dean'll hear Jack’s voice floating out of the library sometimes, or catch sight of Jack rounding the corner ahead of him, or see Jack’s empty cereal bowls littering the sink. You’d think a deity could just snap their fingers and magick their stupid dishes clean, but nope, Jack is just as much of slob about dishes as Cas is—well. Was. </p><p>He kind of feels like Jack’s <em> avoiding </em>him, almost, but it isn’t confirmed until one night when Jack walks into the kitchen, where Dean’s been drinking at the table as a way to have a change from drinking in his room. Jack instantly freezes like a deer in the headlights, then starts to edge back toward the doorway. </p><p>Goddammit. Dean exhales and sets his beer down next to the couple of empties he’s already polished off. “Kid, stop.” </p><p>Jack looks guilty, his shoulders already climbing towards his ears as he hunches in on himself. Dean thinks it might be a habit he picked up from Sam. It catches him off-guard, sometimes, how Jack is a conglomeration of all their mannerisms.  </p><p>Dean scrubs at his eyes. He’s tired. “You wanna tell me why the hell you’re dodging around the place like you’re breaking and entering?” </p><p>“I...” Jack says. At least he’s stopped trying to back out of the room. He moves a few steps closer and then just stops in the middle of the kitchen, his arms hanging awkwardly by his sides. “I didn’t want to bother you.” </p><p>Maybe Dean deserves that. “Look,” he says, “I know I—I know what I did before was shitty, Jack. I got so caught up in wanting Chuck dead, I didn’t care who else had to die to do it. That was wrong. I’m sorry, I am. Truly.” </p><p>Jack just looks at him with those huge puppy-dog eyes—chalk down another thing he seems to have inherited from Sam. </p><p>Dean sighs. “Listen. Like Sam said, you’re welcome here—we <em> want </em>you to be here, Jack. This is your home too, it always has been. I’m not going to kick you out just because I bump into you in the damn hallway.” </p><p>“I’m not worried you’ll kick me out,” says Jack softly. “I’m worried you’ll look at me.” </p><p>Dean feels his eyebrows shoot up. “Uh. You wanna elaborate?” </p><p>“I’m worried,” says Jack slowly, “that you’ll look at me, and all you’ll see is—” </p><p>“What, Amara?” Dean snorts. He takes a long draught of his beer. “Trust me, I don’t.” </p><p>Jack doesn’t seem soothed by this at all; on the contrary, he seems almost more distraught by the second, standing ramrod-stiff in the center of the room. </p><p>“Spit it out,” says Dean finally. </p><p>“I,” says Jack. He swallows. “I didn’t save the world.” </p><p>Dean stares at him for a moment. Then he says, gruffly, “The hell are you talking about? I was there, remember? You and Michael kicked Chuck straight into the afterlife.” </p><p>“But I didn’t <em> do </em> anything,” says Jack, and he looks miserable. He finally closes the distance, slides into the seat across from Dean. He rests his hands on the tabletop, palm up, and looks down at them like they don’t belong to him. “This—this power, it just <em> landed </em> on me, because I was the next best option. I didn’t work for it—I didn’t sacrifice anything. I was supposed to—I was supposed to <em> die </em>, so that you would—” </p><p>He cuts off. </p><p>“So that I what,” says Dean, flat. He knows, or thinks he does. But he waits for Jack to say it. </p><p>Jack slumps against the table. “So that you would forgive me,” he mumbles. </p><p>Dean looks away. He picks at the label on his beer. “Jack, I’m not angry. I was for a long time, but—I’m not anymore.” He’s trying, goddammit. It’s not the same as forgiveness, and they both know it, but he’s trying. </p><p>“You should be angry. I killed—” says Jack. A tear rolls down his cheek. Dean doesn’t want him to say it. "I killed Mary.” </p><p>“You didn’t have a soul,” says Dean tiredly. He isn’t sure if he’s reminding Jack of that so much as himself. He pushes up from the table, takes a step with no particular direction, and then just stands there, hip against the edge. Remembering the first time Jack had died, how the three of them—Sam, Dean, and Cas—had grieved and laughed and reminisced and blinked back tears, sitting around this table, mourning. He thinks of the moment after Sam had gone to bed, when Dean had turned to Cas, his tongue simultaneously too heavy and too free under the influence of too much whiskey, and had said, <em> he reminded me so much of you</em>. And Cas had just looked at him with dark blue eyes, too close, <em> much too close </em> and yet not nearly close enough, and said softly, <em> he reminded me of you, too</em>. </p><p>“But I still did it,” says Jack. “It was still me. It was still my powers.” </p><p>“Don’t you think I know that?” Dean tightens his hand around the bottle to keep his fingers from shaking. He misses his mom. Misses her like a dull knife in his ribs. There are so many people he misses, now. His chest is full of rusting iron. “I look at you and I see—I see—” </p><p>And he does look at Jack, then. </p><p>Jack, who tilts his head like Cas and leans too close to the laptop screen like Sam and dangled his arm out the window of the Impala for no reason other than that he watched Dean doing it. Jack, who burned off his soul for them. Who wanted to die for them. Who has angel and human and deity in him now, and still chose them—still chose to live here, padding around the Bunker hallways and withering Eileen’s house plants and forgetting to wash his dirty dishes and being afraid all the time of what Dean will see in him. </p><p>And Dean thinks of Cas, again, putting himself on the line for Jack. Cas dying so Jack could be born. Cas shielding Jack from Dean with his body. Cas, who had yielded to Dean on just about every damn thing. But not this. Not on this. </p><p>“I see our kid,” says Dean. And then, because Jack is still crying, and Dean can’t bear it any more than he could ever bear Sam crying, any more than he could bear Cas crying in that storeroom, Dean reaches out and cups his hand against the back of Jack’s head. Pulls Jack closer, until the kid stumbles up from his seat and presses into the hug. Buries his face in Dean’s shoulder, his narrow frame shaking with muted sobs. </p><p>God, Dean misses his mom. He misses Bobby. Misses Charlie. But he still has a family. Jack’s tears are wet and warm against the side of his jaw. Dean thinks of Cas again, probably because he can’t ever be around Jack and <em> not </em>be reminded of Cas. “S’alright,” he says, soft. He cards a hand through their son’s hair. “It’s alright, Jack.” </p><p>* </p><p>About a week after the talk with Jack, Dean finally wakes up and stumbles out of his room and it takes him all the way through showering and brushing his teeth and throwing on clothes to remember that Cas left. That Cas isn’t going to be reading in his bedroom or looking up a lore reference in the library or playing Yahtzee in the war room with Jack. And he thinks, <em> maybe this is adjusting</em>. <em> Maybe it’ll get easier</em>. He thinks, then, that maybe one day it won’t even hurt to remember, and the wrenching gut-punch of <em> that </em>thought is so urgent and vicious that he almost trips over the pain of it as he shuffles into the kitchen. </p><p>Where he pulls up short. Because Cas is...there. In the fucking kitchen like it’s any old pre-apocalypse day. Leaning against the counter in the same dark jeans and plain v-neck he’d worn the night he killed Chuck, sipping what smells like burnt coffee out of Dean’s favorite Star Wars mug. </p><p>Dean gapes at him. “What the hell are you doing here? </p><p>Cas looks at him over the rim of the mug. The black coat is missing, and so Dean can see the scythe holstered at Cas's side—smaller now, handgun-sized instead of the longarm he’d carried before. His hair is sticking almost straight up in places and if Dean weren’t so completely derailed by Cas’s actual <em> presence </em>he might have the mental capacity to be unreasonably annoyed by this, because what the hell is this job entailing such that Cas always looks like he’s just extricated himself from a hurricane-force gale. </p><p>“Drinking coffee,” Cas gravels out at last.  </p><p>“Since when do you need coffee?” </p><p>“I like the taste.” </p><p>Dean refrains from pointing out that whatever Cas is drinking probably tastes like burnt tar, if the smell is anything to go by. “Thought you couldn’t taste things properly.” </p><p>“Yes, well...experiencing food as humans can seems to be a benefit granted by this...position.”  </p><p>Belatedly, Dean remembers how much of a foodie the original Death was. Shit. “You been, uh, doing a worldwide food tour, then?” </p><p>“No, I just found out,” says Cas. “There’s a lot I still don’t know, about—all of this. It’s difficult.” </p><p>“Skipped the onboarding, did you?” says Dean. </p><p>“I told you,” says Cas, managing to sound somehow both infinitely patient and incredibly testy. “I rushed things.” </p><p>It makes Dean crack a shadow of a smile, the thought of Cas half-assing his way through whatever weird interdimensional training module someone has to go through in order to learn the ropes of being Death. He sobers almost immediately, though, because of course Cas rushed things because of <em> them</em>. Screwed himself over, because Dean needed someone to drag him out of the fire again. </p><p>“Well,” Dean says awkwardly. “Do you—uh, want an omelet?” </p><p>Cas sets the mug down. “I should go, actually,” he says. “I need to consult Jack about something.” </p><p>Right. Of course. Cas is here on...cosmic entity business. He isn’t here to see Dean. He isn’t here to eat Dean’s fucking cooking. </p><p>Dean turns around, hating himself for the way his eyes are smarting. He pretends to sweep imaginary dust off the counter—which is spotless, thank you very much—so that he doesn’t have to look at Cas any longer. He doesn’t think he can bear it. It’s like he got a glimpse through a door before it slammed shut again, and now the walls are claustrophobic, closing tight around him, taunting him with what he can’t have. The nearness of Cas, all the familiarity of him turned sharp and aching by the <em> strangeness </em>of him. The ring, the gun, even the fucking <em>clothes</em>, all reminders that Dean waited too long, that he ran out the fucking clock by being too much of a goddamn coward all those years. </p><p>It's only about twenty seconds, but it feels like an eternity. When he finally musters up the courage to glance back over his shoulder, Cas is gone. His half-empty mug sits on the counter, unattended. </p><p>Sam pokes his head in through the kitchen doorway. “Oh, there you are. I got a case for us, it’s not far. Wendigo, I think. Want to leave in fifteen?” </p><p>* </p><p>“You just missed Cas, by the way,” Dean says as they head west. For once, the info Sam was able to find online was actually pretty detailed. Couple of bodies found near a small forest reserve, couple hikers still missing. The postmortem photos Sam had been able to lift from local, and poorly secured, databases more or less confirmed a wendigo as the culprit. </p><p>“Yeah?” says Sam absently. He’s in the passenger seat skimming some kind of digital park brochure on his tablet. Eileen would normally be with them on this sort of thing, but she’s away for a few days, driving east to deliver some spell components to a shaman friend in New Orleans. </p><p>“Dude was just...in the kitchen. Drinking fucking coffee.” Dean ignores the way his chest flutters, thinking about Cas all lean and relaxed against the kitchen counter, one huge hand curled delicately through the mug’s handle. </p><p>“Right, he texted me, said he was dropping by to talk to Jack about something heaven-related.” </p><p>Dean just about swerves off the road. “Since when are you and Cas texting?”  </p><p>Sam gives him a strange look. “Why wouldn’t we be texting? He still has a phone, you know.” </p><p>Dean opens his mouth. Closes it. He can’t really think of a reasonable argument against it, except that the concept of the literal embodiment of Death having a phone just— </p><p>Well, Dean thinks, it’s not really that much more absurd than an <em> angel </em>having a phone. Certainly not more absurd than the Darkness wandering around their house and leaving bowls of soggy cornflakes in the sink. Still. He thinks about Cas pulling a fucking smartphone out of that black leather coat. Sending...fucking emojis or whatever to Sam and Jack. A lump rises in his throat, and he doesn’t quite know why. </p><p>“Everything alright with you two?” says Sam, far too casually. </p><p>“Uh,” says Dean, inwardly cursing Sam’s ability to hone in on emotional distress like a goddamn bloodhound. “Yeah. I mean, haven’t really talked to him. Since.” </p><p>Sam is looking at him sideways. “Don’t you think you should?” </p><p>“I was planning on it,” Dean protests, lying out his ass. He’s not going to dive into fact that he’s pretty sure Cas has graduated from the tier of needing to associate with Dean Winchester and seems to be doing just fine with his new Death powers and cool outfit and complete inability to distinguish good coffee from shitty mud water. “There’s just a lot going on, okay? I’m still getting used to...all this. I mean, part of me is still half-expecting Chuck to...y’know, fucking pop up in in the rearview mirror or something.” </p><p>Sam half-laughs. “I know what you mean.” He takes a breath, a shaky, rueful sound. “I keep catching myself rehashing stuff, pulling up these memories of—people, just to make sure I still can. Just to make sure he’s not still out there somewhere, erasing us.” </p><p>“Fuck that guy, honestly,” says Dean, with feeling. </p><p>Sam nods, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “But I think...I mean, he wanted to isolate us, right? In the tessellation, even before we figured it out, when we thought we were happy—it was still just us. And it’s not like that now. Like you said before, in the weird motel dimension—I think as long as we...as long as we have the people around us, the people we love, the people we miss, it’s real.” </p><p>Dean looks away, out the window, so that Sam won’t be able to see his face.<em> The people around us, the people we love. </em> </p><p><em> I love you</em>, Cas had told him, and it cracked everything about them wide open. What is Dean supposed to do? He can’t mope around the Bunker indefinitely, trying to bury himself in chores and liquor because missing Cas is like acid gnawing through his bones. But—he thinks of Cas in the kitchen, so close and so untouchable. <em> I love you</em>, Cas had told him, and it had dragged up all the <em> want </em> that Dean had tried so hard to bury, all those years. Knowing that Cas is Death now doesn’t help Dean to subsume that again, doesn’t give him a way to shove it back six feet under. Even if Cas decides to stick around, can Dean go back to the way things used to be? Can he live with all his armor flayed off, with all of his <em> wanting </em> exposed and raw on the surface of him? </p><p>It isn’t fair—it isn’t <em> fair </em> because Cas being alive should be <em> enough</em>. It should be enough just to know that Cas is alive, out there in the world, not rotting in a void dimension because he died to save Dean’s skin yet again. But god, Dean’s selfish. He doesn’t want to do this without Cas. Even if it cuts at him, he doesn’t want this hollow victory where freedom means he never sees Cas again. He’ll—when they get back, if Cas is still there, Dean'll apologize for being weird about it. Maybe, if he’s not weird, if he doesn't turn this into a <em>thing</em>, Cas will still stop by every now and then. Maybe—Dean can still see him, sometimes. If that’s all he gets, if that’s all he can have of Cas—he'd rather have it, than nothing at all of Cas. </p><p>“Alright, I think I found a likely spot for the lair,” says Sam. He taps at the screen to close out the park map. “Pretty straightforward.” </p><p>"Straightforward sounds fantastic,” says Dean. “Maybe we’ll be back in time for dinner.” </p><p>* </p><p>Dean sprints up the trail toward the highway, the muscles in his thighs burning. He can't go quite as fast as he’d like because he needs to watch his step; to his right the earth drops away into a low ravine that sports a dry creek bed and a handful of cedar saplings. It’s a good thirty or forty feet down the near-vertical slope—not enough to kill him as long as he doesn't split his head open on a boulder on the way down, but enough to be unpleasant and probably break a bone he needs for either walking or fighting. </p><p>Sam is half a mile back down the trail, trying to get the injured campers mobile again. With luck, Dean will be able to get the Impala down the miniscule service road they’d discovered and they can get the hell out of dodge. They hadn’t expected the wendigo to be hunting this close to the interstate—stupid, Dean thinks, <em> stupid </em>of him not to be prepared for it, for any possibility—and his senses are whirring on hyperalert as he nears the crest of the trail. </p><p>In the end, it doesn’t do him any good—he sees the wendigo as it lunges from the dense trees to his left, gets the flare gun up and fires off a shot that the thing dodges with blurring speed. It’s on him the next instant—the gun gets knocked out of his hand, and the breath punches out of him as he feels his back hit earth and tree roots. </p><p>Dean tries to roll away, put distance between himself and the creature so that he can scramble up. But the wendigo’s directly on top of him, its rancid breath puffing hot against his face; its weight pins him to the ground as he struggles to slither out from under it and protect his throat at the same time. And he feels, he <em> feels </em> its claws deep in his torso, shredding tissue and muscle and organ alike, opening up places that were never meant to be opened. He smells sulfur, feels hounds’ teeth in his belly, he’s back on the rack, back under the knife, <em> oh god</em>, and in a spasm of blind panic and agony he gets his feet planted and <em> shoves </em> at the wendigo, not so much pushing it back as pushing himself <em> away</em>. </p><p>He skids over the sandy earth and then—then he’s tumbling into empty space, and for a moment it feels just like when he stepped off that cliff with Sam, in Chuck’s fake timeline. He has the sudden wild thought that the surrounding forest is going to vanish in a flare of light. That he’s going to land in a creepy motel hallway or, worse yet, the Bunker. </p><p>That isn’t what happens. What happens is that he slams almost immediately into a jut of rock—there's a crack and a flare of shattering agony in the vicinity of his ribcage—and then he's rebounding off of it and careening head over heels down the slant of the cliff face. </p><p>“Sam—” he gasps on instinct, through a mouthful of blood, but there’s no Sam. There’s no <em> anyone</em>—it's just Dean, falling. He catches a whirling glimpse of trees and sky and the wendigo’s receding form before another boulder clips the side of his head and his vision flashes white, then crimson. He ricochets, free-falls the last few. yards, and lands hard on his shoulder, rolling to a stop a few feet from the pebbled creek bed.  </p><p>“Fuck,” he wheezes out, the word slurring like syrup. He hopes—god, he hopes the cliff is treacherous enough that the wendigo can’t just clamber down after him, or it’ll drag him away to bleed out in some dark lair where his corpse probably won’t ever be found. One of his ribs is definitely broken, and his head feels like someone went at it with a poker. It pales in comparison to the wounds in his chest and stomach, which are—he tries to raise his head to look, can’t manage to judder it more than an inch off the ground. His skull feels like it’s splitting in half, and his vision isn’t quite right, but he doesn’t need to see. He can <em> feel </em>it, pain spilling like fire all down his torso, burrowing into him, the wounds are too <em>deep</em>, they cut too far, he’s losing too much blood—</p><p>He doesn’t want to die. Dean puts a shaking hand over his chest, where the blood is pumping hot and red and bright. He can’t bring himself to grope lower, risk bumping his fingers into his own spilling viscera. <em> Please</em>, he thinks, to no one in particular, and sucks in a shuddering breath, hears himself whimper involuntarily as it catches on the broken rib. With his other hand, he swats feebly at his pockets, but doesn’t feel the shape of his phone—it must have fallen out. Sam. He needs to get to Sam. The wendigo—if it follows his scent back up the trail, it’ll find Sam—it’ll kill Sam— </p><p>Distantly, he’s aware that he’s probably going into shock. He tries again to lift his head but the world is spinning <em> hard </em> and he can’t seem to move much. And everything <em>hurts</em>, <em>it</em> <em>hurts</em>, he can barely <em>breathe</em> it hurts so much. He’s going to die. After everything, he’s going to die on a stupid milk run hunt because he didn’t happen to look over his shoulder quick enough. He doesn’t want to, he doesn’t <em> want </em>to die but he doesn’t get to choose, does he? Chuck or no Chuck, it was always going to end like this for him.  </p><p>A sob bubbles up in the back of his throat, hot and wet and coppery. He doesn’t want to be alone. He wants Sam. He wants Cas. He wants his mom. He doesn’t want to die alone in the craggy shale in the middle of these woods, where Sam will eventually find his decaying corpse and have to drag it back and burn it—oh god, Sammy, he's so sorry, he’s so sorry he’s going to do this to Sam. He doesn’t want to go—he wants to stay— </p><p>—and he's never going to see Cas again, he thinks amid the haze of agony, <em>never</em>—never—<em>Cas, I was gonna</em>—he was going to try to fix it, he wanted Cas to <em> stay</em>— </p><p>“Dean!” </p><p>There are hands on him, tugging his head to the side. Someone is ordering him to hold on. <em> Hold on to what</em>, he wonders. Something presses ruthlessly against the fiery burn of the wounds, until Dean cries out weakly and arches his back. Through blurry tears he sees a dark coat, a pair of frantic blue eyes. His vision swims and goes silvery-bright for an instant. </p><p>“Dean, it’s alright. I’ve got you.” </p><p>It takes him a moment to realize the pain is gone. Miraculously, magically gone. He gulps for air and blinks up at Cas, who’s crouched over him, one hand under the back of Dean’s head, the other still pressed against Dean’s chest. Dean can feel the warmth of Cas’s palm through the rents in his ruined shirt. Strange, he thinks inanely, that Cas still has body heat. </p><p>“Dean,” says Cas, for a third time. He doesn’t move his hands. </p><p>“Didn't know Death could heal people,” Dean croaks, finding his voice at last. </p><p>“I,” starts Cas. He closes his eyes for a moment, his face grey. “Neither did I.” </p><p>Dean opens his mouth, probably to make another stupid joke about why primordial entities shouldn’t skip onboarding, but his attention is caught by the dark shape swarming down the cliffside. Dry cedar scales crunch as the wendigo leaps the last few feet to the ground below. “Cas,” he rasps in warning. “Wendigo—” </p><p>Cas removes his hand from Dean’s chest, unholsters his scythe, aims over one shoulder, and fires. The wendigo goes up in a burst of scarlet flames, its howl petering into nothing as its body withers and burns away into thin air. </p><p>“Cas, <em> Jesus</em>—” </p><p>Cas turns his eyes back to Dean. His other hand is still cradling Dean’s head, holding it off the ground. Dean can feel the light pressure of Cas’s thumb against his temple, and he has to fight the urge to turn his face into it, lean into the pressure. </p><p>“Are you alright,” Cas asks him. His gaze tracks over Dean’s body and the tenderness in it pulls at Dean. He wants to say no. He wants to say, <em> not since I lost you and never really got you back</em>. He wants to say, <em> how come I always have to be hurt for you to touch me</em>. </p><p>“I’m fine,” he manages, embarrassment making his voice gruff. He struggles up into a sitting position. The pain might be gone, but he feels lightheaded with the nearness of it, like his brain is still trying to reconcile his healed body with the agony of one minute before. There’s still something like panic thrumming through his veins, making his breath uneven and shallow. Cas drops his other hand at last, and Dean misses the contact instantly. He can’t have this, he tries to reminds himself. Not now, not anymore. </p><p>“Good.” Cas eases the scythe back into the holster, makes to rise. “You should be safe now.” </p><p>“Wait,” says Dean. It cracks out of him, the word brittle and weak, but it’s there. “S-stay.” </p><p>Cas stares at him for a moment, unmoving, still down on one knee. </p><p>Fuck. Dean hadn’t meant to say it. Hadn’t meant to let it slip out. He swallows, tries to stammer through a recovery. “I—we need your help. Sam—there’s some hikers who got hurt, he's trying to get them to the road. Will you—will you help?” He fights to keep the note of pleading out of his voice. He doesn’t want Cas to go. God help him, he knows Cas was never his to begin with and certainly isn’t now, but he doesn’t want Cas to go. </p><p>Cas’s face smooths out. “Of course,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. </p><p>“There’s a campground, half a mile up the trail—” </p><p>“I’ll find them,” Cas assures him. A shaft of the afternoon sunlight glances over his ring, makes it flash like a dewdrop of white fire. Dean drops his eyes. Suddenly he can’t bear it—the thought that Cas will find Sam and heal the campers and then vanish off to Death’s—<em>his</em>—library, or whatever distant corner of the earth has been occupying his attention for the past two weeks, and Dean won’t see him again until the next time he shows up at the Bunker to talk to Jack. </p><p>“Might need a lift back to the trail,” he manages. “After you help Sam—” </p><p>Cas shoots him another startled look. “Yes, I’ll find you after.” For a moment Dean thinks Cas is going to squeeze his shoulder, or touch his face. He wants—god, he <em> wants</em>. His whole body aches for it. But Cas’s hand just hovers in the space between them for a moment, and then drops. </p><p>“Wait here for me,” Cas tells him, like Dean’s in any state to try to scale a thirty-foot cliff right now. Cas rises to his feet in a single fluid motion, and the next instant he’s gone, and Dean’s alone. Again. </p><p>Dean swallows. The ravine, in Cas’s absence, is dead silent, and despite the warm sunlight Dean shivers suddenly. He looks over at the corona of ash still settling slowly into the cedar needles, where Cas had burnt the wendigo into nothing, just a moment ago. The charred odor of it, even from a few yards away, is suddenly too much—Dean can smell smoke, smell sulfur, smell blood. He puts a hand on his chest, where the skin is whole and unbroken, and feels a phantom rasp of agony under the muscle. The hellhounds are ripping flesh off his ribs—Alastair has him writhing like an insect, pinned to a lattice of bone— </p><p>Dean barely manages to roll onto his side before he’s retching emptily, his lungs seizing up as his whole body contracts around the shudder in his chest. </p><p>He’s not in Hell, he thinks, desperate. He’s not. He’s <em> not</em>. Sulfur curdles in the back of his throat and he barely manages to avoid retching again. He curls in on himself and squeezes his eyes shut. Tries to focus on his breathing, tries to count inhales and exhales as he fights the surge of panic. Cas got him out. Cas is coming for him. Except no, that’s not right, there’s no one coming for him, because Sam—Sam has Eileen, and Dean’s happy for Sam, he <em> is </em> , Sam deserves more than this shitty lonely life, deserves more than a shitty lonely older brother who can’t—who doesn’t know how to do anything except hunt the things that go bump in the night—who can’t even do <em> that </em>much right, apparently. </p><p>And Cas— </p><p>Cas has the purpose he’s always wanted, has the kind of juice he hasn’t had in years, ever since he first fell from Heaven, ever since Dean ruined him—<em>when Castiel first laid a hand on you, he was lost</em>—</p><p>Cas doesn’t need Dean— </p><p>There’s a rustle of cloth, a footstep crunching on the leaves. </p><p>“I found Sam, he’s alright. He’s taking the campers—Dean?” </p><p>“I’m fine,” Dean grits, refusing to look at Cas. He slumps against the narrow trunk of the nearest sapling, wishing very badly for the earth to open and swallow him up. He shoves clumsily at Cas’s reaching hand. He’s suddenly so incredibly, <em> painfully </em>angry. “Don’t.” </p><p>“Dean. Tell me what’s wrong, I can fix it—” </p><p>“I said <em> don’t!</em>” Dean snarls, and finally whips his head up to glare at Cas, who has crouched down beside him, so close Dean could count his lashes if he wanted. Too close and not close enough, <em> too close</em>. Cas does pull back then, withdrawing his hand with a stricken expression, and this just makes Dean more furious. Cas doesn’t have the <em> right</em>—he doesn’t have the right to touch Dean so gently, look at Dean so tenderly, when it isn’t—when it doesn’t mean—when he’s just going to leave again. </p><p>“You just—left,” Dean chokes. It rips out of him before he can stop himself. <em> You left me. You left me. </em> </p><p>“You asked me to find Sam,” Cas protests, confusion and hurt warring on his face. </p><p>“Not <em> now</em>,” says Dean bitterly. “Then.” </p><p>There’s a beat of complete silence. Dean watches understanding bleed through Cas’s countenance. </p><p>“I thought,” says Cas finally, and his gaze is suddenly dark and distant, “I thought that I should try to keep some distance. That perhaps you would not want me around, as I am now.” </p><p>“As you—as you are now?” Dean sputters. The idea of him <em> not </em>wanting Cas around, in any possible iteration the universe could think of to spit forth, is so laughably absurd that it comes close to short-circuiting his brain altogether. </p><p>“You said it yourself, Dean,” says Cas, in a low monotone. “Horseman of the apocalypse, remember? And you were right. I came back, and I’m grateful that I did, grateful that I could help. But I didn't come back as someone who should—be around the living.” </p><p>Dean opens his mouth to protest, because that wasn’t what he’d <em> meant</em>—but Cas is already steamrolling on, his face set in a look of stubborn, resigned determination. </p><p>“You are—you have always been—so full of life,” Cas says. “And now I’m—well.” The corner of his mouth tugs up, a sad, bitter smile. “The antithesis of that. To wear this ring, to carry this weapon—it isn’t just a title, it’s a—a nature. It’s death. You can’t—you couldn’t possibly want to be around that. Around me.” </p><p>“Yeah?” says Dean. He tamps his anger down a little, but it’s still simmering under the surface, low and furious. “<em>Fuck </em>that.” </p><p>Cas arches his eyebrows with something like disbelief, and now he looks a little angry, too. Probably pissed that Dean isn’t taking his little speech more seriously, which, again, <em> fuck </em>that. </p><p>“You think I give a shit <em> how </em> you came back, Cas?” Dean spits. “You think I care whether you’re here as an angel or a human or a goddamn force of nature? I fucking care that you’re alive! And I—I want you around, of <em> course </em>I want you around, but you—you never stay, Cas, and why would you?” His heart hammers against his ribcage like he’s still mid-fight, all that adrenaline churning and churning under his skin with nowhere to go. “It's not like there’s anything for you at the Bunker, so why would you—” </p><p>“Why <em> would </em> I?” Cas repeats incredulously. “You don’t think I—you don’t think there's <em> anything for me</em>?” </p><p>“You don’t <em> need </em> me.” The words tear into him like the wendigo’s claws. “You don’t need anyone, Cas, with the power you’re running on, you’re not <em> stuck </em>with me, so why would you—” </p><p>“I told you,” says Cas, low. “I <em> told </em>you how I felt, Dean.” </p><p>“Yeah, and then you <em> fucking died!</em>” Dean sits up straighter so that he can lean into Cas’s space, and it all comes bubbling up, all that grief, all that sorrow, all that memory. <em> I love you</em>, Cas says, like it’s so easy. <em> It’s something I know I can’t have</em>, Cas says, like he fucking knows anything at all. <em> Goodbye, Dean</em>, says Cas, and the void swallows him up, and the wall is cold against Dean’s back. “Don’t just—say it like it’s that simple. It’s not that easy, Cas! You said it while Billie was fucking knocking down our door, you said it so that the Empty would take you, you died in front of me and now that you’re back you don’t <em> need </em>me, so you don’t have to pretend I’m all there is, alright? You don’t have to pretend there isn’t so much more you could have—you don’t have to pretend like—” </p><p>“You want me to say it again?” Cas's voice drops impossibly lower, almost a snarl. The sunlight turns his eyes a blazing crystalline color, like they might start snapping sparks at any minute. “I love you. I love you, Dean Winchester. It <em> is </em> that simple. It’s <em> always </em>been that simple, for me.” </p><p>Dean tries to ignore the lump in his throat, but he feels the warning prickle of oncoming tears, nevertheless. Because what is he supposed to do with that? <em> It’s something I know I can’t have</em>, Cas had said, but Dean had told him, Dean had <em> told </em>him he could have it, and Cas—Cas didn’t want it. “I told you,” he says, his heart quickening, “in the dream—I said, I told you that I—”  </p><p>Surprise flashes over Cas’s face, wariness on its heels. “You remember.” </p><p>“I told you how I felt,” Dean whispers, an echo of Cas’s words a moment before. He blinks a tear loose from his lashes, feels it score down his cheek like a tiny liquid blade. “If you knew, then why didn’t you say anything.” <em> Why did you leave</em>, he thinks. </p><p>“Dean—I know you cared for me, before—that you considered me family, but—the way I feel about you, it’s something I know you don’t—” Cas stumbles, his words colliding with each other as he talks faster. “The way I—the way I want you, you <em> have </em>to know I would never demand reciprocation, I would never want you to be uncomfortable, I know it’s something I can’t have—” </p><p>“I don’t <em>care</em> what you know!” Dean yells. He feels a little unhinged. His hand flies up almost of its own accord, twists into the leather of Cas’s coat like he can anchor himself there, stay tied to the present moment, to the nearness of the thing he’s trying to pull free of its years-long silence. “I don’t give a fuck what you think you can’t have, Cas! You’re wrong!” </p><p>“Dean,” Cas breathes. His eyes are enormous, endless. </p><p>Dean isn’t done. He doesn’t think he could stop now if he tried. “Goddammit, I want you to <em> stay</em>, I want you <em> with </em> me, I’ve <em> always </em> wanted you with me, and you—<em>fuck</em>, I always mess it up, or you always leave, and we’ll never—” </p><p>Cas makes an aborted noise, low and unmoored in the back of his throat. “Please,” he rasps. His head drops low. His palms are pressed against the earth. “Please, Dean, if you only believe one thing, believe that I’ve always wanted to stay with you.” </p><p>Dean swallows a sound of his own, feels it stick in his chest, clog his lungs with its raw thrum. It’s like he’s falling again, strings cut; he’s falling through space and time, through Chuck’s folded narratives, out into the real world. </p><p>“I love you,” he chokes out, and folds forward, against Cas. His forehead lands on Cas’s shoulder, the leather somehow cool despite the sun. “You can always have me.” </p><p>This close to Cas, the two of them in each other’s space like this, Dean can feel everything. He can feel the way Cas’s body goes rigid for a moment and then trembles, a bone-deep tremor like a ship rocked on a wave. He can feel the way Cas’s shoulders move in a sharp, uneven inhale, can hear the sound of the ragged breath close beside his own ear. He can feel Cas’s hands when they come up to press against him, one against his back, between his shoulder blades, the other against the nape of his neck. </p><p>“How could I not love you?” Cas’s voice is a shaky whisper against his temple, but his palms are warm and steady and certain. Dean presses his face into the collar of Cas’s coat. “I told you, Dean. I know who you are. How could I know you and not love you?” </p><p>“Cas,” Dean says, and he hears his voice crack around the word. It comes out like a plea but he doesn’t know what he’s asking for, just that his whole heart, his whole body, is aching with a wordless, depthless yearning. He tightens his grip on Cas’s coat and uses it to drag himself closer, like he can bury himself in Cas. He wants, he wants, he <em> wants</em>. </p><p>Cas moves the hand on Dean’s neck, spans his fingers against Dean’s jaw. He lifts Dean’s head gently, stares at Dean the way he stared in that storeroom, his eyes reverent, like Dean is some—like Dean is some precious thing. </p><p>“You’re crying,” Cas murmurs, though Dean can see plainly that Cas is crying too. Cas traces his thumb over the bones in Dean’s face, smearing tears over the skin. </p><p>“It was you, you know,” Dean mumbles. “That was how we broke out of the tessellation. I couldn’t stop remembering you.” </p><p>Cas parts his lips, like he’s about to speak, but instead his mouth just trembles and his hand goes still on Dean’s face, so that he’s just cupping it against Dean’s cheek. His breath ghosts over Dean’s mouth. He smells like the air right before a storm. Dean shivers, though not from cold, and thinks about how they’re all finally free, and maybe this is the first moment he can actually do something with that. </p><p>“I don’t,” he tells Cas, and has to pause to take a breath, take hold of all the courage he has left, “I don’t want a story without you in it.” </p><p>He closes the gap between them. </p><p>His mouth meets Cas’s and—they’re kissing. He’s kissing <em> Cas </em> and <em> oh</em>, it’s fire and light and starshine and devotion and the scent of a cold pine wind and the sweet silk heat of Cas’s mouth and Cas’s hand running up the remainder of his spine to tangle in his hair and the soft hunger of the sound Cas is making against Dean’s lips and <em> this</em>, Dean thinks with strange and breathless elation, <em> this </em> is victory, <em> this </em> is freedom, <em> this </em>is a story worth living. </p><p>He doesn’t know how long it lasts, the two of them kissing on the warm earth, surrounded by the gold light and the scent of cedar. They break apart finally, just enough for air to wisp between their mouths. </p><p>“I love you,” Cas murmurs. He hasn’t stopped threading his fingers through Dean’s hair. “I love you, I love you.” </p><p>“I know,” Dean tells him, still feeling a little out of breath, like he's just run a marathon. "Me too, Cas—Cas, I’ve loved you for so <em>goddamn</em> <em>long</em>—” </p><p>He gets cut off as Cas pulls him into another kiss. Dean revels in it, the syrup-slow lightning of their mouths, the heat that lances down his spine when Cas’s tongue slides against his. Cas tips his head and kisses the corner of Dean’s mouth, then up along the edge of his jaw, and <em> fuck</em>, Dean would like very much to sit here and continue this for a lot longer. Unfortunately, he is also, as he reminds himself with tremendous mental effort, technically still on a hunt. </p><p>“We should go find Sam,” he sighs into the side of Cas’s face, where a hint of stubble is just barely discernible. </p><p>"Sam is a very capable hunter and is certainly managing just fine,” Cas grumbles, but he reluctantly moves his hands down to Dean’s elbows and stands, pulling Dean up with him. They rock against each other for a moment, toe to toe, close enough to put their arms around each other. Dean can hear birdsong from the trees at the top of the cliff. The sunlight limns the edges of Cas’s hair like a halo. </p><p>“I guess I should say thanks, too,” Dean murmurs. “You saved my life. Again.” He still has one hand curled in the fabric of Cas’s coat, and he moves it to Cas’s hair, holding him close. He never wants to stop holding Cas. God, how did he go so many years <em> not </em>holding Cas, allowing himself only the barest of touches, denying himself everything else? </p><p>Cas creases his eyebrows together. “I hope it’s a while before the next time. Seeing you so injured—not knowing yet whether I would be able to heal you—” </p><p>“But you did, so thank you,” says Dean firmly, because Cas looks haunted by the memory, and Dean wants to wipe that expression away. “How did you even know I needed help?” <em> Help </em>is probably an understatement, he thinks, wincing internally as he remembers the injuries Cas had healed. </p><p>It might be just the light, but it looks as though Cas is blushing a little. “I heard your prayer. I...seem to be able to hear some prayers, still.” </p><p>Now it’s Dean’s turn to frown. “I wasn’t praying.” </p><p>“You were, a little,” says Cas softly. “Not in words, so much. But you were.” </p><p>“Oh,” says Dean. He might have been embarrassed by it, once. Or tried to deflect it, frightened by the immensity of what it suggests. Now it just makes something warm unfurl in his chest. He cups his other hand against Cas’s wrist, rubs his thumb against the pulse point, traces along the lines of Cas’s palm. “I figured maybe my book said I died by wendigo or something, and you were keeping an eye out.” </p><p>Cas blinks. “Dean, I should tell you...the books in Death’s library, they don’t hold endings, anymore. I’ve checked them all. All of the fated endings—they vanished after Chuck was defeated.” </p><p>“What? You’re kidding."</p><p>"I am not kidding."</p><p>"So...they’re all blank now?” </p><p>“They’re not <em> blank</em>. But the books now only detail what <em> has </em> happened, once it has already come to pass, and not what <em> will </em>happen. I don’t know how you, or Sam, or anyone else living, will die.” Cas makes a slight face. “Which is perhaps for the better, as I don’t know that I’d be able to remain impartial.” </p><p>“Jesus,” says Dean. “We really ripped up the ending for good this time, huh?” </p><p>“It makes a certain kind of sense,” Cas says. “Chuck was, after all, the original writer of the universe, the one who was scripting out our lives. With him gone, there isn’t really a pre-written destiny for anyone, anymore. Only the one we each write for ourselves.” </p><p>“Good riddance,” says Dean. “Never liked destiny.” He pulls Cas in for another kiss. </p><p>Cas smiles into the kiss. “Neither did I.” </p><p>“So if we’re making it up as we go along,” says Dean, and he feels a little shy, because even if he’s felt this way for more years than he can keep track of, <em> saying </em>it is new. He cocks a brazen eyebrow at Cas. Thinks to himself that all his bravado is probably wasted since Cas can probably hear and feel his fluttering pulse. “You’ll stay for the ride? Write yourself into my book?” </p><p>“If you want me in there,” says Cas, but he doesn’t say it uncertainly—he says it with another smile, gentle and warm against the side of Dean’s jaw. Like he already knows the answer. But Dean will say it anyway. He’ll say it again and again. </p><p>“I do,” Dean says. He takes Cas’s hand, laces their fingers together. “I want everyone I love there.” </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you so, so much to everyone who has been following along with this story and who has left kudos/comments. I loved writing this fic, but it was so different in scope and scale than anything I'd done before that it presented a pretty unique challenge for me. I felt like I had to wrestle with each chapter only to question it as soon as it was posted—did it make sense, did it mesh with canon and with the previous chapter, did it convey what I needed it to, were the metaphysics reasonable, was it even enjoyable to read, etc. I appreciated all of the positive feedback and encouragement SO much and it absolutely nourished my soul through the struggle of this (comparatively) giant fourth chapter. On which note, I hope you enjoy this last chapter (and the rest of the fic, if you're reading it straight through). Thank you again, and if you pass the canonical series finale on the street, tell it I said go to hell!</p>
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